Monday, May 16, 2011

Trip and much more

Click here to view these pictures larger

Our Senses- Hearing

There are sounds all around us. Some sounds make us want to dance. Some make us aware of danger. Some sounds are high like a whistle, some sounds are low, like a drum. How do we hear them?  Hearing is one of the senses. On each side of our head there is an ear that helps us hear sounds all around us. When we look in a mirror we can see only part of our ear. That part is called the outer ear. It is shaped like a baseball glove. This shape helps to catch the sounds. But what happens next?  The sounds travel into the little hole in our ear straight to a eardrum that starts vibration that passes on to other parts of inner ear: three little bones, tube and to the nerves that send special message to our brain. Brain "reads" the message and lets us know what sound do we hear. 
Some people can't hear. They are deaf. It affects their ability to speak. They can't say correctly sounds because they never hear them. These people use sign language to communicate with each other. Some people who have partial hearing use hearing aids. In class, we read the book about elephant Oliver who could not hear well. He was not happy, he was always on the side when his friends played games, his brother and sister could not watch TV with him, because Oliver would made it very very loud. One day, his mom took him to a doctor who gave him a hearing aids. Oliver was the happiest elephant because w]he could hear his friends singing "Happy Birthday" song to him he could play with his friends, he could enjoy TV show with his family.  
With our ears we can do so many mitzvas. We can hear the sounds of shofar on Rosh Hashana and megillah on Purim, we can hear music and someone's brocha!  

Dr. Zhanna taught us "Ear Do and Don'ts":
Do cover your ears when the sound is very loud
Do make TV sound low
Don't put anything inside of your ear
Do go to a doctor if your ear hurts 
Do pay attention to every sound around you. It might warn you of danger.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Our World - Water

On the second day, Hashem created water. What is water? Friends said that water makes us wet, we drink water, we give water to animals and we water plants. Morah said that water gives us the fastest way to cool off, the fastest way to get clean. We learned that water is liquid (something that we can pour); it doesn't have shape. It always the shape of the thing that's holding it.  Water likes to stick to some things like paper towel, rags, even our clothes.



 Does water stick to everything? We put a large drop of water on the waxed paper. Lifting the paper we observed the drop slided off. The paper was not wet. Morah told us that water doesn't wet wax and fat. As a matter of fact, duck's feathers are coated with a kind of grease that keeps duck dry after it dives  under the water.  

We learned that water is one of the things that get used again and again. It keeps going around and around- we call the "Water Cycle". We learned the song about it.
TTTO She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain
Water travels in a cycle, yes it does.Water travels in a cycle, yes it does.It goes up as evaporation,Forms clouds as condensation,Then falls down as precipitation, yes it does.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePSJU3Qm41E&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cb3SIMRCIE
 Next week, we are going to learn more about water cycle, about different properties of water and how it can be changed from liquid to solid matter, and then to gas.

Excitments of this week

Meeting the World War II Veteran

Rosh Hodesh Rally

Dr. Zhanna is telling us about Hearing Sense and the ways to protect our ears.

Trip to the New York Aquarium

Working on a part of our Bulletin Board

Saturday, May 7, 2011

To Our Mamas!

Happy Mother's Day to Pre-K Super Moms! 
We love you...  
for making yummy food,
for giving a lot of hugs,
for yummy chicken salad,
for beautiful art work you make,
for playing with me and making a house for a little frog,
for loving me and cooking food for me,
for cream cheese sandwiches and real frog that I got as a pet.

With Love Always Yours 
Ariel, Alan, Aaron, Nosson, Chava Evalyn, Jacklyn, Zaylin, Yonni, Shlomo, Ron, Yonni, and Shimon

Making Patterns

Pattern is a set of objects that repeat again and again.
Could you read the patterns we made?
Blue, green, blue, green... Shlomo made color pattern.


Does it look right?

Could you read this pattern? Standing, sitting, sitting, standing sitting, sitting...

Try to read these patterns:)

Our Senses- Seeing

Our friend, Dr. Zhanna taught us about one of five senses- Seeing. It is called the sense of sight. Our eyes are like cameras that never stop taking pictures. Eyes quickly send these pictures to our brain. Brain sends us back information about what we see. Our eyes are shaped like round balls. We can only see the front of them. The backs of our eyes are safe inside of our head. When we look at our eyes in a mirror, we can see black circles in the middle of our eye that is pupil. It lets light into our eye. The colored part around the pupil is the iris. We noticed that most friends have brown iris, other friends have blue, green or grey iris. Our eyes let us see things far, far away, to see pretty colors, and to see important signs like "Stop" sign.
Dr. Zhanna taught us that there are three things that protect our eyes- skull, eyebrows, and eyelids. A skull protects the back of our eyes, eyebrows don't let sweat get into eyes, eyelashes protect our eyes from dust. We can do more protecting our eyes. For example, don't look straight on the sunlight or any other light; wear sunglasses.

Our World- Light

This week we started the new unit  “Our World." The world amazes us every day. Hashem created it for us. On the first day of creation Hashem created light and separated it from the dark. He called the light day and the dark- night. Light is all around us. Friends said that light is good because it let us see our friends, toys and all things around, it let us to be safe and do not bump into things when we walk. Friends made list of things that make light- sun, stars, lightning, fire, candle, flashlight, fireworks, fireflies, and lamps. We discovered that things that make light are hot. One of them is SUN that gives us light and warmth. Sun is a closest star to the Earth, that is why we can see it and feel its warmth.
Light travels in straight lines and it goes everywhere; it goes through things that are transparent. Transparent means clear or see through. Such things like glass, window, water, glasses or plastic are transparent. The light could be blocked by opaque things, things that are solid. Walls, doors, blocks, books, people are opaque. When light is blocked by opaque object it stops. An opaque object forms a shadow.

Some things need Energy to make light. Flashlights need batteries, lamps need electricity. Energy is everywhere- it lights up our houses, it warms us up, it plays music and move cars, buses and trains. In class we made a list of the things that we use energy for. Next week we are going to discuss what would happen if energy rans out and how we can save energy.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Koof

This week we learned the letter Koof.

Koof has a big curve and a big line that comes down.
Koof looks like Kiddush pouring down.

Here are other Hebrew words we learned that begin with a Koof:
"Cafe"

Friends in our class enjoyed painting with, smelling and tasting "cafe."

Kodesh

Kodesh, means holy or special for Hashem. Some examples of things that are Kodesh are Torahs, siddurim (prayer books,) a Tallis (prayer shawl,) the land of Israel and you! Every single person is Kadosh because they have a neshama, a piece of Hashem inside of them.  Additionally, when a person does a mitzvah they become more "Kadosh."
We treat things that are Kadosh with respect. We do not put "kodesh" things on the floor. We also can show respect by kissing things that are Kodesh. This is why some people kiss Torahs, siddurim and tzitzis.