Category Archives: Tu Bi’Shevat

tu bi’shevat higiya!

What an amazing week of discovery we experienced in honour of Tu Bi’Shevat! From germinating and observing different beans and lentils, to fascinating discussions about the contributions and benefits of trees and forests, and even exploring various fruits and their similarities and differences. Thank you all so much for sending in the wonderful and delicious fruits, and thank you to Ittay who brought in a wonderful book about our very favourite things: monsters and fruit! We used our five senses (and three languages!) to celebrate Tu Bi’Shevat to the fullest! We even decorated little planters as new homes for our sprouted beans and lentils, and gave them as birthday gifts. We discovered that our Lima beans needed more time to sprout and hypothesized that it’s because they are the biggest beans and got so big by drinking a lot of water. We decided to keep them in our window until they sprout, and then we will plant them too. We wish our plants a happy Tu Bi’Shevat, happy birthday, and may you grow big and strong in your new homes!

 

 

Homework alert!

We have been getting ready to celebrate Tu Bi’Shevat (**special homework after photos**). We’ve done some beautiful art, read stories, learned some songs, and learned about Shivat Haminim. Here’s another story from our very own amazing librarian, Brigitte, that you can enjoy at home together. We also started germinating some beans and lentils, and we will be planting them on Thursday or Friday, depending on how long their roots get.

HOMEWORK: This Thursday, January 25th, in honour of Tu Bi’Shevat, we will be having a “favourite fruit” show and tell. Please send your child with one or two types of fruit that they enjoy, packaged separately from their lunch and snacks. Please leave stems, peels, and seeds/pits as we will be exploring each fruit as well. Thank you!

This Friday, January 26th, we will be having a dress down day in support of JNF. Please send a loonie or a toonie. See flyer below.

 

just another Wednesday here in JK…

Even though it was too cold to play outdoors, it didn’t stop us from expanding our horizons indoors! We worked on our letter of the week, P, and named SO MANY words we know that begin with P. We did some name writing practice, built with all kinds of blocks, talked about Tu Bi’Shevat, learned some new words (trunk, branches, leaves, and roots), learned about shivat ha’minim (the seven species), and started preparing window frames for our upcoming germination project.

 

And then…

JK was so excited to receive this AMAZING pack of accessories for our light table, through Scholastics Rewards from the book fair. Thank you Brigitte, and thank YOU parents for your Scholastics books purchases!! This morning we checked out the translucent shape beads and used them to measure animal x-rays. We can’t wait to experiment with all of the other cool things: eye droppers, test tubes, translucent patterns, and paint scrapers. This kit even came with translucent overlays that we can paint on directly, and then wash off to experiment and play with another day!

Tu Bi’shevat higiya!

Welcome back from winter break! Your children adjusted really quickly to being back in the classroom and were excited to jump right back into learning! We kicked off with a discussion about the upcoming holiday of Tu Bi’Shevat. We talked about what trees provide for humans, animals, and the environment. We looked at our empty, frozen, snow-covered Canadian trees, and beautifully blooming almond trees in Israel, talked about the similarities and differences of Tu Bi’Shevat in Canada and in Israel, and then translated that learning into some beautiful art. Take a look!

Today we celebrated the birthday of the trees, and the birthday of one of our friends in class!

We kicked off the celebrations by planting the beans and lentils that we germinated last week. They will stay in our class all this week, to be taken home on Friday, so we can see and track their growth. We reviewed the life cycle of a plant (seed – root – sprout – plant) and talked about how trees are good for people, animals, and the environment.

Next, we had our favourite fruit show and tell, with kiwi, mango, pear, figs, grapes, pomegranate, cherries, and a pomelo! Everyone was excited to talk about their fruit and we used our five senses to examine them.

Then, we had a Tu Bi’shevat seder with our reading buddies in grade 4. We learned about the 7 minim (species), and enjoyed eating them! We made grass heads together, which were sent home today. They need a nice sunny spot and water every day. Please comment and/or send pics when the grass grows!

Then we celebrated our friend’s birthday and had some yummy cupcakes. A BIG thank you to his family for giving our class an awesome tug-of-war rope! We are SO excited to play with it!

All in all it was a very busy day. We hope they all sleep well tonight!

 

Tu Bi’shevat higiya! Tu Bi’shevat is coming!

JK has been very busy getting ready to celebrate Tu Bi’shevat on Monday! We talked about the importance of trees to people, animals, and the environment, and created some beautiful handprint tree art. We also started to germinate some beans and lentils, and learned about the life cycle of a seed: seed – sprout – root – plant. On Monday, we will join our grade 4 reading buddies and have a Tu Bi’shevat seder and a little surprise project!
Stay tuned!