Kornmehl
Terry Aizen – Director of Kornmehl
Pesach explorations
Since Purim, we have been learning about the festival of Passover and the wonderful traditions, stories, characters, songs, food, and creative experiences involved with this festival. We tell the story of Pesach using animation, song, music, props, and costumes and invite the children to take on roles in the story. Re-enacting the story helps to bring it to life, and allows them time to process the details and make sense of it. We tell the story of baby Moses and how he grew up in Egypt, being cared for by King Pharaoh’s daughter. The children love dramatising the story, particularly the parts when Moses goes to ask King Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go. Through all these sensory and visual experiences, the festival of Passover comes alive for the children and has meaning for them.
Pesach Seder
We all participated in our interactive Kornmehl Pesach Seder on Tuesday. The children arrived at Pre-school dressed in their best Shul clothes, eager to participate in this long-awaited Chag. The tables looked beautiful, and the food was delicious. Each child participated in dressing up and dramatising the story. We had King Pharaoh’s and Moses characters, Yocheved, baby Moses in the basket and lots of slaves. What a triumph it was when Moses led us to the Red Sea, and it parted, and we were all led safely to freedom and the land of milk and honey. We sang, rejoiced, and ate delicious matzah ball soup, lots of Matzah and all the traditional foods found on the Seder plate. We had a wonderful time. Our Seder ended with the children all going on a hunt to find the Afikomen.
Thank you to all our wonderful parent helpers: Mrs Lisa Greenberg, Mrs Laura Gordon, Mrs Jessica Glikman, Mrs Jessica Ivany, Mrs Melissa Varejes, Mrs Gabriella Sacks and Mrs Janine Silver. A big thank you to the maintenance team for helping us get ready for the seder. Everyone’s help is very much appreciated by all the teachers and the children.
On Thursday, we got to join in the Year K-2 Pesach Seder. Once again, the opportunity to connect with our Emanuel Community is one we treasure and look forward to. We participated in the Seder and sang two songs. Thank you to Morah Hagit, Mr Adam Carpenter, Mrs Anna Maylis, Mr Tommaso Parisi, Novak (piano) and all the Year K-2 teachers and parent helpers for inviting us to join this special event.
Pesach comments:
Alfie: I liked the juice and the story when we were dressing up.
Leo: I liked when King Pharaoh said no, no. no!
Neave: I liked the puppet show of King Pharaoh and I liked the matzah and finding the matzah.
Skyler: I liked searching for the afikomen.
Edison: I liked tasting the salt water.
Juliette: I liked everything.
Noah D: I liked the balls in the vegetable soup.
Back to Pre-school visit
Last week on Friday, a large group of very excited Year K students returned to Kornmehl for our back to Pre-school visit. Everyone was happy to see each other – teachers and children and there were smiles all round. We divided into two groups – Starfish and Dolphins and our Year K students each had a turn to share something special with us that they had learnt at “Big School.” We sang familiar songs, had afternoon tea, a play inside and enjoyed seeing each other again.
This is always a special time to re-connect with the children and to ensure that the foundations and bonds formed at Pre-school remain a special part of each child’s time with us.
Burger Centre visits
Last week, both the Starfish and Dolphin groups enjoyed their first visit of the year to the Burger Centre. We value this relationship deeply and see the opportunity to engage in intergenerational experiences as priceless and extremely heart-warming. Through these visits to the Burger Centre, we aim to create meaningful connections between different generations, promoting a sense of belonging, empathy, and respect. Through music and interaction, children not only bring joy to the elderly residents but also develop valuable social and emotional skills, such as communication, compassion, and understanding of diversity and inclusion.
This truly is a win-win relationship for both parties. It blows us away when we see the engagement of the Pre-schoolers and how respectful and meaningful their interactions are. They sing with confidence, talk into the microphone, and love the opportunity to perform for their appreciative audience. Being a rainy week, we got to ride in the Burger Centre bus, which was also a highlight.
Neave: We are going to sing to the old people and going to do a mitzvah.
Milo: I liked the bus and biscuits. I liked making the people happy.
Noah D: I liked it when I was singing, and the people were watching.
Amelia L: I liked it when I was singing for the other people. I could see they were happy.
Shevet Achim Ve’achayot
Over the past few weeks, we have been practising the chorus to the song Shevet Achim Ve’achayot. The children took on this challenge with a lot of spirit, ruach and energy and got into it from the very beginning. It was almost as if they knew that this song was very special and one that they could connect too and feel such a sense of warmth and community, when we all got together to practise. We made our learning fun, and it astounded us how quickly the children learnt the words to the chorus, which were very tricky.
We were super proud of the Kornmehl children and how well they coped being put on the spot and with very different expectations placed on them during both the audio and video recordings. They behaved beautifully and participated both times for close to 2 hours. They were all super stars!
It was heartwarming to be part of this incredible project as a whole school and we cannot wait to see the final video. Seeing the whole school working collaboratively towards this goal was a moving, spiritual experience for all involved.
A huge thank you to Mrs Adina Roth, Mrs Sarit Spiro, Mr Adam Majsay and Mrs Tany Milner for their vision, collaboration, and brilliant management of this huge event at Emanuel school. Kol Hakavod to you all.
Happy Birthday
We wish a very happy birthday to Amelia Levi (4), Leo Glikman (4), August Wheeler (5) and Tamar Stuhler (5). We hope you all have a beautiful birthday celebration this term and in the holidays.
We look forward to seeing you all back at Pre-school on Thursday 2 May 2024.
We wish you all a Chag Sameach and a happy Pesach with your families. We hope you all enjoy a restful and rejuvenating holiday.