Montessori and Chanukah Fun Printables and More!

My dear and very talented friend Nechamy has very graciously started contributing her gorgeous and very well made Montessori inspired printable activities to my blog for all of you to enjoy-

Feel free to download and print some or all of these fabulous Chanukah activities for your munchkins, all made and put together by Nechamy just for you... 

Chanukah Fun Sheets

Chanukah Parts of a Whole

Menorah Match

And of course, these adorable books from Mish and Mush- just click on the images to purchase and enhance your Chanukah experience...

And check out these super cute Chanukah themed card games and activities from Emily Sper...

Just click on the above images to make these adorable activities yours~

Enjoy the rest of your week and stay tuned for a wonderful Alef Bet curriculum review and some more fantastic Alef Bet activities from the wonderfully talented Nechamy!

Always,

FREE Jewish Five Senses Game for Preschoolers!

Here's a little something I made for the Munchkins...

My Jewish Five Senses Game for Preschoolers

{Click Here}

Thank you for your support!

 

Enjoy!

Always,

Jewish Headbanz Game!

We have the game Headbanz which my kids LOVE--- they play it EVERY Shabbos and just can't get enough of it. They often have friends over to play so I figured, why not make a Jewish version!

Each child has a plastic head band that they wear and attach a card with a picture to it that only the other players can see. Each child has 60 seconds to ask yes or no questions about what their card is... "is it a place? is it a food? is it an animal? is it big? is it small? etc."

Its a fabulous game, so here is a Jewish version for you to enjoy~ Just print it out on card stock or regular paper and laminate it. Cut them out and there you have your cards.

Click Here to download Jewish Headbanz

Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Always,

Jewish Homeschooling 101 (for the little ones)

I receive many similar e-mails from lots of Jewish moms asking me "where to begin" when it comes to Jewish Homeschooling. Now I must tell you that I am a rookie in this department since my oldest is almost 7 which means I have been doing this less then 6 years. But I will tell you what works for me and my family as every mom is different and every family is different.

From the age of 0-6, our kids have an amazing ability to truly experience the world. What does this mean? It means that instead of focusing on "teaching them things" we should focus on giving them the tools to learn how to figure things out for themselves. And how do we do this? By letting them experience the world through all five senses: sight, taste, smell, touch and sound.

These early years are so important for our kids to explore and discover. You don't need fancy toys. You need simple toys. Blocks, balls, crayons, musical instruments. The simpler the toys, the better. 

If you go through this blog, you will find many activities involving the 5 senses. These are great for them to do at this age. Allow them to help you in the kitchen. Let them learn how to pour their own milk. Peel their own apple. The more you allow them to figure things our and do things by themselves, the higher their self esteem and the easier it will be for you!

Another very helpful thing to do is set up a daily routine and stick it up on the wall- it can look something like this:

Remember, this is for the early years, when most of your kids are under the age of 6. Playtime is free play. Time for them to just play. Its usually early in the morning so they want to do their own thing. Let them. If you have a playroom, great. If not, have a special section of the house with their toys, preferably not their bedrooms. make sure it is not cluttered and all the toys are visible to them and organized. They should be able to clean up after themselves when finished playing.

Activity time is when you present activities to them that you have prepared. Pouring beans from one container to another. Stickers, art project, sorting, stamping, cutting, gluing, painting etc. You can do this at the kitchen table or at a special school table if you have the room in your home. Let the kids see the difference between free play and doing an activity. 

Don't worry about content. They are young and will ultimately learn the Parshah and Holidays. Right now it is all about giving them the skills to absorb lots of information when the time comes. Don't beat yourself up on drilling information into their heads. Its all about them learning how to learn. 

In regard to davening with the little ones, using a CD always works well, doing motions, using musical instruments. Make it fun. You can do it before activity time or playtime. 

They will learn their Alef Bet, ABC's, numbers and shapes when they are ready. And you will know when they are ready because they will begin to show an interest. Trust me, trust yourself and most of all, trust your little ones.

In regard to Jewish content, flood your home with Jewish books and Music. There is a lot out there and it should be a priority when purchasing anything for your kids. 

 

When my kids start 1st grade they begin the Shluchim Online School which is an Online Yeshiva. So far, my son who is in 2nd grade absolutely loves it. He does this in the morning and we do his English studies in the afternoon. My 5 year old will start 1st grade next year. 

Many of you are afraid that your kids wont be up to the same level as kids in school. Studies show that homeschooled kids are actually far more ahead of children in school. If this is something that worries you, find a contact at a Yeshiva that you respect and ask them to help you out in that department. Maybe get in touch with a teacher who teaches the age of your kids and ask if you can get an idea of where the students are up to every few months. Maybe she can even email or mail you the quizzes and tests she is giving to her students. There are lots of possibilities. Or if you have  friends or family with kids the same age or older as your kids, ask them to save their kids worksheets and tests and send it to you. You can use this as a guide for yourself.

 I really hope this post answered some of your questions and addressed some of your concerns! It is not an easy journey Homeschooling, but we figure things out along the way.

Wishing you all a wonderful week,

Always, 

A Purim Activity Pack!

A Purim Activity Pack

Click Here to View

Enjoy!

Some fun activites

Some fun activites that have been keeping the kiddos busy...

Alef Bet wheel, you can add different vowels as well as use pegs to match up the letters. Great for beginners in letter recognition.

Same idea, just with colors:
Used an ice tray and rubber erasers, color sorting. I had tongs but my munchkin got impatient and just used her fingers to place the erasers in each correct hole:)
Beading with pipe cleaners- they can match the beads to the same colored pipe cleaner or make their own design...

Now this was a HUGE hit: Made 2 felt boards using a picture frame and felt (got this amazing idea here), then cut out different shaped eyes, noses, mouths, hair and hair accessories and the little ones created all types of faces, over and over again-
The felt boards:

Self portrait of the little guy:)

Classic Cheerios book with Cheerios... we didn't do this in a long time, so it was fun.

Movable Hebrew Alphabet with board- another great hit, the little guy made tons of words, it was fantastic...
and lastly, Counting Chocolate Chips- you can use anything, really. This is more for number recognition and counting for little ones- you can make lady bugs with spots, bees with stripes, get creative:)
And thats what we were up to today...

Hope to create and post more soon, wishing all a wonderful week,

My Jewish ABC's!

Here's a little something I made for my munchkins-

The Jewish ABC's... you can make it into a book or laminate and cut them out and make flash cards.

Either way, enjoy and have a great Shabbos!

Click Here to Print My Jewish ABC's

I have a little Menorah, I made it out of clay:)

The great thing about this clay Menorah, is that the kids get to make it literally from scratch.

Here's the clay recipe:

3 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup water (plus a little extra if needed)

Mix all the ingredients together until it forms a nice smooth dough. I found that we needed to add some water along the way to get the smooth doughy consistency. The recipe said you can add food coloring but I found it just stained the kids hands when handling the dough which was not too exciting.

Preheat oven to 275.

Once we had our dough, we made a base for the menorah, made 8 round balls and used actual Chanukah candles to form little holes to put the candles in. Make sure to make the holes a bit bigger then the size of the candle, as it shrinks a drop in the oven. Use water to "glue" the holders to the base and the shamash.

Place menorah in the oven on wax paper for 1 hour.

After an hour, take it out and let it dry completely, then paint with acrylic paints. As you can see, ours turned into a finger painting session:)

Here's the finished product:

We then did dreidle sorting into the different colors with the little ones- I have a printable of colored dreidels here, feel free to use it-

This is what we did:

Wishing everyone a happy Turkey day:)

My Chanukah Activity Pack

I know Chanukah is not for a few more weeks, but I made this little Activity pack for my munchkins now since as Chanukah approaches, it seems that between the party planning and the latke frying, there really isn't much time for too many other things!

So feel free to download it for your munchkins and enjoy. It is geared toward little ones, ages 2-5.

My Chanukah Activity Pack

And for those of you who make Lapbooks, I am sure you can use some of the pages for your "Chanukah Lapbook."

Have a great week,

Weekly Plan- Parshas VaYeira

So I found a fabulous weekly planner somewhere in my files. I have no idea where I got it but it looks perfect for us and the way our week goes.

Because we dont have a strict routine, I like this planner because it just highlights what I want to get done. It dosnt matter when or how long each activity takes, but as long as it is done over the week, by Shabbos, then I know I am in good shape!

Now it is just a Theme Planner, meaning that it is planned around the weekly Parshah or Jewish Holiday. It does not include Hebrew Reading or writing, although I would like to incorporate that at one stage. For now, here it is:

And here is a pdf version with clear boxes:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B1yNhR_r8JrmMTQyZGI5MTUtYTRjZC00YzNjLTgxMzctYzZjMTVhNjBlMDg1&hl=en

(I usually love color and graphics, but for this planner, I left it pretty simple)

And here is how I filled it in for the week:

Theme:

Parshas VaYeira

Mitzvos:

Hachnasas Orchim (Hospitality to guests), Bikur Cholim (Visiting the sick)

Numbers/Shapes/Colors:

Triangle Tent

4 Entrances

3 Malachim

99– age Avraham Briss

100– age Sara gave birth

Hands-on Activity:

Build a tent with 4 entrances, someone pretend to be Avraham with food to offer “guests”

Snack:

Eat snack inside the tent that is built

Art:

Make a Tent out of paper with 4 entrances

Glue real sand to the floor

Make a welcome mat

Science/Discovery:

Discuss ways we can stay healthy, make a chart of healthy and unhealthy foods

Discuss ways that you are and how to be hospitable and host guests

Related Activities:

Discuss North, South, East and West

Make a compass (from http://www.youthonline.ca/crafts/makingacompass.shtml):

Supplies

Sewing needle, 1 inch long.

Small bar magnet (refrigerator magnets may work)

A small piece of cork.

A small glass or cup of water to float the cork and needle.

How To Make It

1. Your compass will work better if you first run a magnet over the needle a few times, always in the same direction. This action 'magnetizes' is to some extent.
2. Cut off a small circle from one end of the cork, and drive the needle through it, from one end of the circle to the other, instead of through the exact middle
3. Float the cork and needle in your cup of water so the floating needle lies roughly parallel to the surface of the water.
4. Place your compass on a still surface and watch what happens. The needle should come to point towards the nearest magnetic pole (north or south as the case may be)
5. If you want to experiment further, try placing a magnet near your compass and watch what happens.

Notes:

The earth produces a magnetic field. This field, although weak, is sufficient to align iron and other paramagnetic compounds such as your needle within it. By floating the needle on the cork, you let it rotate freely so it can orient itself within the earth's magnetic field, to point toward the north or south poles of the planet.

Books:

Hope someone finds this somewhat helpful!

Our "Curriculum" Part 2

The Torah says to "teach a child according to his ways" and so I have 2 munchkins who have 2 very different styles of learning. My little guy (5) is extremely academic. He can read books for hours on end and loves worksheets, workbooks, math and anything Science. My munchkin (3) is text book Montessori- she loves fine sensory activities, sorting, cutting, sticking, beading, anything like that.

And so I made her a little station with workboxes that she can do by herself. Each drawer is numbered and she does them in the order of the number. As she has finished each activity, she puts it back in the drawer and sticks a "check" on it, notifying me that she is "done" and then moves on to the next drawer. I have 6 drawers in total and she loves loves finding what surprises mommy has put in there every day.

Now my little guy, he has folders with different "assignments" in each one. Some are worksheets, some are little reading books, some are hands on activities (which I put on the trays) and he picks and chooses which activities and assignments to do. There is no quota for how many things he has to do a day and so he can spend as much time as he needs on each thing. He loves the independence of picking and choosing what to do. Some days he does all of them, some days he does just a few, depending on his mood as well as the activity.

He is enrolled in an online Yeshiva and so he does his Judaic studies in the morning for an hour and a half with the rest of his class. Its pretty awesome as he has kids in his class from all around the world who are all little Yeshiva boys and girls just like him living in the middle of nowhere! We have a big world map on the wall and he has pinned all the different countries/cities of his classmates (Cancun, Mexico, Guatemala, France, England, St. Thomas VI, and around the continental US), he really loves it and it covers so much- his Hebrew reading, writing, prayers, holidays, customs etc.

Here is his system which works really well for him. He also has little "I'm all done!" cards to let me know which activities he has completed so I can "refill" it for the next day:

Sometimes my munchkin wants to be like her big bro and so I give her Alef Bet work sheets from this book:

They are fabulous for beginners in letter recognition, and she feels like a big girl doing her worksheets. I have a little folder that she keeps them in and feels really proud of herself:)

So thats what works for us so far-

Hope you find what works for you!

Thanks for stopping by,

Here is our Jewish Studies Weekly Routine

I did this for myself, to get a little clarity on what I need to do with the Little Tykes over the next few weeks.

This is just for Tishrei and not exactly a calendar, more of a schedule to follow. Note how there are no specific time slots- we kind of do things when the moments seem right (early in the morning, later afternoon)

Here it is:

and here is the PDF version

And these are some of the books, CD's and DVD's that we use in each subject that I highly recommend since my kids love love love them!

Alef Bet:

Parshah:

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah:

As we do each activity or project I will post more details about each one.

Hope its helpful or inspiring! More details to follow~