Over the past two weeks the JK students have been immersed in learning about Day 1 of Creation. Our generative topic for Day 1 of Creation is:
“The difference between dark and light helps us notice details.”
וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים, בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ.
וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם, וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה
The Torah teaches us that tohu va’vohu was there first. In order to better understand the concept of tohu va’vohu (chaos) and its opposite seder (order), the children learned how to combine, and to then organize, and sort different objects. In art, the children drew different kinds of lines in their new sketchbook to represent tohu va’vohu and seder.
On Day 1, God created light. The Torah teaches us that “… God separated between the light and the darkness,” God divided between hoshech and or. We asked the children to think about the following questions: What is light? What is the colour of light? Over the course of the next week we will explore the answers to these questions. We will learn about the rainbow, and the children will become little scientists themselves and will try to create a rainbow with the help of a prism. They will also use the light table and other tools to mix colours.
The Torah teaches us that God named hoshech – layla – dark – night and ohr- yom – light- day. We also learn that all of God’s creations have a name. In connection to this topic, children learned to recognize and name their feelings in different social situations and learned the names of the colours in Hebrew.
We are continuing to work on relaxation skills. This week we guided the children through a relaxation exercise in a dark room. We have been focusing on how the dark provides us with an opportunity to relax verses the light which makes us want to be more active. After the relaxation exercise we began naming how we feel in the dark. The lights in the class are then turned on and children worked on naming the feelings they feel in the light.
