Kornmehl
Terry Aizen – Director of Kornmehl
Chanukah
We have begun learning about Chanukah – the story, symbols and traditions of this beautiful festival in preparation for when Chanukah starts in the holidays on the 10 December 2020.
Our explorations of this festival are done through music, songs, art, construction materials and of course food! The children have been drawing beautiful representations of a Chanukiah, using water colours and black texta. Their attention to detail is incredible for children so young. The children have also all worked with clay to each make their own Chanukiah, which has been fired in the kiln up at Emanuel school and then glazed and refired to get the beautiful end products. Each child will be able to take home their own specially designed Chanukiah to light their Chanukah candles in.
Many thanks to Eytan Messiah and Christal Rimmer for their help and support with this project. How lucky we are to be able to connect to and use our Emanuel School resources across all areas of the school.
Alona – I’m going to use it for Chanukah. I’m going to light the candles
Liam – I want mine to be a rainbow
Max – I’m going to use it for Chanukah in the Gold Coast
Miles – I’m going to light nine candles on Chanukah. On the first night, one; on the second night, two; on the third night three…
As the Dolphins continued to learn about Chanukah, they lit the Chanukiah in the darkened Dream room and the light filled their hearts with warmth and a beautiful energy filled the room. They learnt a new song called “This Little Light of Mine”. We wondered what the words meant, “I’m gonna take my light around the world” and what message would we give to the world.
Levi – I’m gonna let it shine
Phoebe – Make everyone feel happy
Miles – To make people feel calm
Abi – Sharing when I take my light around the world and hope people will be kind
The Starfish have been exploring the concept of light. One group looked at light on the overhead projector and the other looked at a string of lights.
Here are some of their comments:
What are lights used for?
Evan – different lights can be different colours on houses. Lights can be different shapes
Allegra – At Christmas when you are walking, you can see lights on houses
Arlo – When it is dark, they make a room lighter or anything lighter
Neveau – The lights on the roof at Pre-school shine out white light
Daniel – You can put them on your house and scare someone away at the door
Alice – Lights are used for if you are having a pool party and flashing lights and rainbow lights out of the pool and in the pool
Finn – For seeing
Micaela – For a midnight feast
Sam – In an emergency you use light
Abby – We made a campfire and the campfire made the light. It was dark
Micaela – Light comes from electricity, when you switch it on, it doesn’t go off
Allegra – For a birthday when the birthday person comes in and you have turned the lights off to surprise them with the cake, fire, candles make light
Sam – Candles are not made with electricity; they are made with a match
Georgia – When it is dark, and someone is scared, and they plug it in and there is a new light
Joshua – Light is part of a storm because light is lightning
Leah – Lights are used to see so we can see where we are going. You see lights in our house. The sun makes light
Ariel – To make bright in the dark
Where do we see lights?
Finn – When it is dark in the room, you turn the light off
Zach – Why aren’t the lights hot
Neveau – Candle lights are very hot and campfires
Arlo – Some ceiling lights get hot too
Oliver – Lights can hang on trees and garden benches. I see them on apartments
Neveau – Lights shine in the dark
Arlo – In the old days they did not have lights, they used candles
Zach – Why is the candle going down?
Ariel – I think it’s going out
Arlo – The fire will melt the candle to do down
Oliver – It is formulating lava from the candle. Candles are made from wax
Penny – The wax come from bees
Finn – And there is wax in your ears
Joshua – Basically, wax makes your ears clean
Abby – I’ve seen where they connect light together to get electricity
Sam – I’ve seen lights up in the sky, the sky has a big light in it…..a big sun, when the morning turns up. Sun is the biggest planet, the biggest fireball
Zac – Sometimes I see streetlights high up on a pole with a light on it. When it is dark you need to see where you are going
Penny – The red light says STOP, the green light says Go and the middle light says SLOW
Allegra – That’s called a traffic light
Allegra – You can make light with shadows, if light goes onto something, you make a shadow
Sam – When you stand in front of it, you get a shadow, or behind it, wherever the light is there will be a shadow
Penny – You have a sun shadow and if you are in the shade, you have a shade shadow, a dark one
Finn – Your shadow reflects the light
These comments and insights from the children are quite profound and show a deep understanding of complex concepts.
The children also looked at a Havdalah candle and spoke about how and why we use this special plaited candle. We lit the candle and experienced the Havdalah which marks the end of Shabbat. Awakening all our senses as we see the flame, smell the spices and feel the warmth of the candle.
The Seashells have been spending time making beautiful collaged dreidels and shields to use for their concert. They listened to the beautiful story of Chanukah and afterwards looked at the picture of the temple – its structure, shape and how it was built. They engaged in making the Temple out of recycled materials – linking in with National Recycling Week. They used boxes and yoghurt pouches that the children have been collecting every day from their snacks and lunches. This project will allow the children not only to understand the victory of the Maccabees, but also the miracle that happened during that time, where just one day’s supply of oil allowed the menorah in the Temple in Jerusalem to remain lit for eight days.
New Parent Information Night
On Thursday, we joined with all our new families for 2021 on Zoom. We spent the evening discussing all housekeeping aspects of the Pre-school, with particular attention on preparing and settling the children in, as well as waste free meals, sustainability and recycling in the Pre-school. Other topics we covered were hours of operation, rest time, safety and security, birthdays, Bush School, online portal – Educa, communication and illness. We had a good turnout of families and we hope they found the evening informative and useful.
Concerts
The children from all three groups have begun preparing for our end of year virtual concerts. The Seashells will record their concert next week on Monday 23 November 2020 at 11.30 am. The Dolphins and Starfish concert will be recorded on Thursday 26 November 2020 at 9.30 am and 10.15 am respectively.
The videos will be shared with families via a youtube link before the end of the year.