Fig Class: Physics and Loose Parts

Dear Parents,

What a busy week we had. Thank you to those who came out to celebrate on Grandparents day/ Special Friends day and all the interviews were fanstastic! This week we continued to celebrate our trees and celebrated Zoe's 3rd Birthday! Happy Birthday Zoe. Here are some highlights this week.

Fruit Matching

In our block center we continued with our fruit matching activity. Hammond noticed these blocks right away Monday morning when he came in. He says, " I found two pineapples!" Pointing to the fruits he discovered, he continued to say, "this isn't a pineapple this is a banana." Hammond searches and finds other fruits on the block shelf, and he immediately starts sorting his finds into separate piles. A friend, Hana, observes Hammond for some time then she asks Hammond, "Can I join you?" Hammond replies, "Yes!" The two work together to stack the fruit then destruct and sort and stack again.

Racing "Grapes"

This week in the block center our friends also made ramps out of cut up pool noodles to race rocks that we pretended were grapes. We presented this invitation by asking a simple question, "Would you like to race these grapes along a track?" to provoke exploration. The noodles were set up so they were leaning against a shelf creating a sort of ramp in the block area. First our friends started their grapes at the top of the ramp that was on the shelf and sent their grapes rolling down the chute. Hammond was the first to start this activity sending one grape after another down the ramp excitedly waiting for them to stop rolling while guessing how far each one would roll. We even collected data. Hammond marked where each grape stopped and then we discussed which grape rolled further.

Mina and Tzippi came over and used the second noodle to create different shapes. While manipulating the noodle she says, "Look we made a circle!" "I can make a rainbow" said Tzipi
They twist and swirl forming various courses to race their grapes. Finally with one friend on each end they form a U shape and take a grape and send it down both sides, giggling as they watch the grapes descend down and stop. Our friends learn about cause and effect and a pre-understanding of physics. Depending on the angle the noodle is directed at, they saw the grape either go faster or slower.

Parsha Yitro
Morah Kayla tells us Parsha. Hashem gives the Torah to the Jewish people on a little humble mountain called, Mount Sinai and the ten commandments were given. Rabbi Tzvi tells us the Torah doesn't tell us what to do but it's a way of life.

Building and tinkering with loose parts

Our friends use recyclable tubes and wood to build castles. During construction a problem occurred. We had some friends that wanted to build castles that were so tall and knock them down while other friends wanted their castles to stay up. "How can we solve the problem?" Morah Felicia asked her friends. "What if we have the friends that want to knock down on one side of the carpet so there is enough space for everyone's work to stay safe." All of our friends agreed that was a great plan. Yochai was so excited to stack his castle so high. "I built it!" he shouts proudly before he knocks it down to reconstruct several more times