Camp ends with some wonderful values in action!

A few continuations of wonderful events! Several weeks ago we noticed a mama bird sitting on a makeshift nest in our chopped rubber on the toddler playground. The bird got very nervous when the kids got too close so we closed off that playground, because it is our job to respect and protect animals, as we know from our study of the Jewish value, tza'ar ba'alay chayim.
Miss Susie's 3 year olds made the project above after watching the egg hatch. The kids loved seeing the baby bird.

I have already told you about our wonderful garden. After we planted, watered and then harvested pickling cucumbers the kids made pickles with the cukes. It was such a wonderful all camp experience! The smallest kids put the cucumbers in the jar, the oldest kids put in all of the spices and the middle kids put in all the liquid. Everyone loved making the pickles and we cannot wait to taste them! Please see the pictures of a few of the steps and the finished product!

Kindness to animals, Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim is one of my favorite Jewish Values for kids because most kids love animals! We enjoyed learning about lady bugs and we put them in our garden so they could help us take care of our garden! The kids also took ladybugs home for their gardens.
They made a duck pond with fish and learned about our responsibility to help keep lakes and ponds clean.
They brought a favorite animal (stuffed) to share their Shabbat Party incorporating inviting guests for Shabbat.
We have had a great summer!

The third session of camp was so much fun. Our theme was Tekun olam, Repairing our world and Bal Tash Chit preserving and taking care of our world.
All of our art projects revolved around recycled materials.
The kids made friends out of toilet paper rolls and other recycled materials. Most cities have teacher recycling centers where they can buy everything from cardboard and yarn to fun foil papers. Check out where your local recycle center is if you have not already been to it. For you lucky people in the North East and close to Boston they have a fabulous place!
We have an organic garden where the kids planted a pumpkin patch, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, radishes and a variety of other vegies. The children love watering the plants and picking ripe vegetables. They then eat them for snack. Gardening is so fabulous for little kids as well as for our world!
Tikun Olam and Bal Tash Chit are fabulous themes for camp as well as school!

The theme for our second session of camp was Shalom Bayit, Peace in the home. We started with a pre-Father's Day Donuts for Dad before Shabbat Singing. Everyone loved it! We actually served donut holes because they are the right size for preschoolers.
Some of the art projects were a family mobile, it was a house with the kids actual address ( so they were learning their addresses) and then stick people for each of their family members and of course pets. This was a very cute project and the kids loved it!
When the children built their Village Shalom pictured above they talked about the importance of having peaceful homes and classrooms. They finger painted the grass and dirt and designed the houses with chalk, water colors, stickers and glue and foam shapes creating a village of shalom where they could pretend to go to each other's houses in their neighborhood. I am told by parents that the kids play for months with the projects they bring home from this classroom!

Dibuk Chavarim, Caring for Friendships, has been the theme of the first two weeks of camp.
In the prek group the kids learned Henai Matov U'Maniyim as well as played games with learning names of all their friends in their group and talking about the importance of knowing people's names.
Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold. These words in this song helped the kids realize the importance of friends, old and new!
The next day the kids were given a rock and told to note everything about the rock. They then closed their eyes and pictured their rocks and finally put their rocks in a box with other kids rocks and they could each find their own rock. When the kids talked about the importance of looking friends in the eyes when they talked they realized their rocks needed eyes so they put googly eyes on their rocks and then they named them and got to take them home to keep their new friends. The kids learned how important it is to notice everything about your friends because each person is different and special and that is how you show you care about them!

Jewish Values at Camp

Camp 2011 starts in a little over 2 weeks and we are wrapping up the plans!
We are using Midot, Jewish Values as our session themes.
The Midot we will focus on are: Dibuk Chaverim, Cleaving to Friends
Shalom Bayit, Peace in the home
Hachnasat Orchim: Hospitality, welcoming guests
Tikun Olam, Making our world a better place
Bal Tashchit: Do not destroy
Tza'ar Ba'alei Kindness to Animals
Some of the special activities we will be doing are: Friendship Circle and pretend camp fire with our music teacher singing with us.
Raising lady bugs and then releasing them
We have an organic garden we will be gardening in
We are having a donuts for dad breakfast before Shabbat singing one morning
And so many other activities that are not directly related to the midot but are a lot of fun because camp is all about fun. Needless to say the kids are learning in almost every activity they participate it!

Today at our staff meeting 2 pairs of teachers presented their classroom experiences with lessons on Jewish Values.
The first to present was the pair of teachers who have the young three year olds. They have been talking to the children about Bikur Cholim (Visiting the sick) and they told the kids about a teacher who had fractured a bone in her foot and is in a wheel chair. They talked about what you can say to someone who has hurt themself or is sick and then they brought this teacher flowers and told her to feel better quickly and other beautiful phrases they have learned. It was an amazing experience to watch these little ones really care about a teacher that they don't know.
The older three year olds, most are 4 or turning four soon were talking about Sayver Panim Yafot, having a cheerful attitude. They made clown feet to walk in the ways of God and they made fun silly ties to be happy and funny and they made great hats and inside the hat was the following: Let you clown feet carry you quickly to greet others
Have a good heart and always be kind
Wear a smile on your face and keep a silly red nose on so you can make others laugh
Put your hat on your head and make sure you use your heard (your brains) to be wise and to study Torah.
(Shhhh!-Keep these secrets under your hat!)
Clearly the kids cannot read this but the parents can and it reinforces what the kids have learned while teaching the parents the values we are teaching their kids. This little poem was written by Susie Blackman, the teacher in this class.