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FEBRUARY 4, 2021 | The Jewish Home
Around the
Community HAFTR Celebrates Tu B’Shvat
W
hile we are in the midst of the cold winter here in America, in Eretz Yisrael they are getting ready for the spring. Before vacation, the children of HAFTR’s Early Childhood learned about Tu B’Shvat, the birthday of the trees. It’s a special time to plant trees in Israel and marks the blossoming of many of Israel’s most beautiful trees – the olive, date, fig, and, of course, the shkediyah or almond tree. The students
made their own spectacular shkediyah trees to decorate their homes. The Pre-K students had a seder led by the Chalav U’dvash teacher Morah Yael. It featured foods to help taste the Shivas HaMinim. The yeladim can name all seven minim in Hebrew and English: wheat, barley, grape, olive, pomegranate, date, and fig. In conjunction with the holiday, the children learned about the parts of the tree, how trees help us, and how they grow. We compared the parts of
the tree to people. Roots = feet, trunk = body, branches = arms, and leaves and flowers = head. They spoke about how we start with a seed and end with the plant and learned words like sprout, bud, blossom, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. They discussed all of the essential items we get from trees such as food, paper, shade, and wood. Their favorite fun fact is knowing how to find out how old the tree is by counting the number of rings on a tree stump!
The children also enjoyed reading Tap the Magic Tree by Christine Matheson and predicting what action would come next. After, they created their own “magic tree” designs using brown construction paper strips, leaves, and pink tissue paper puffs. Lastly, no birthday goes without cake – even the trees’ birthday! Each class enjoyed baking a birthday cake for the trees and decorating it as a tree with green, white, and pink frosting.
