October 11, 2024 |

Grade K – Gan Class Update 12-10-17

Posted on December 11, 2017

Hello Gan Class Families!

In just a few short days Hanukkah will be here!  I am sure your home is full of excitement.  We have spent the last several weeks preparing.  During Tefillah, we have practiced the blessings and songs.  I heard many students singing them throughout the day.  Today, Ann shared with us her personal menorah and some dreidels she has collected over the years….she even had one in Braille!  She taught us how the candles are placed into the menorah and the way we are supposed to light the candles (the newest candle first).  We discovered how many candles we will need for to have to light the candles all eight nights by putting out eight menorahs with the candles for each night.  When we counted together we reached 44!

Bar has started to teach us about the different geographical areas of Israel.  Today we learned about southern Israel which is made up of mostly desert.  We acted out several things you might do in southern Israel during a fun game.  Below is a picture of the drawings students created to show the different things you might see in the desert areas of Israel.  Can you guess what they are?  

Our new letter today was het.  Het makes a ch- sound and begins the word challah.  Students are continuing to practice letter recognition skills in class together.  

Today we read another story about Noah’s Ark.  This one had more details about why Noah needed to build an ark, how many animals were on it and how long they had to stay on the ark.  We learned that Noah brought at least two of every animal.  He actually brought SEVEN of each Kosher animal. And even though it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, the animals and Noah and his family had to stay on the ark much longer than that as they waited for the water to go down and the land to become visible.  Another new detail was that Noah sent two different birds to see if it was safe to leave the ark.  One came back with nothing and Noah knew that they could not get off yet.  The second, a dove, came back with an olive branch which showed Noah that there was land available. Next week we will make illustrations in our workbooks to help us remind us of the details of this story.

Next week we will be focusing on Hanukkah!  We will join the whole school for a Hanukkah celebration and participate in lots of holiday activities.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about the Gan Class.

Michelle