Dear Families and Educators,
Building upon Hebrew College Early Childhood Institute's (ECI) best practices that combine Judaics with developmentally appropriate experiential pedagogy, the Science Fun for the Holidays blogsite captures the high quality programming developed by the ECI for educators inspired by activities we did with other academic institution such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tufts University, Wheelock College, Haifa University of Israel, Oranim Academic College of Israel, Mada Tech of Israel, the Israel National Science Museum, The Weizmann Institute of Science, and the Technion of Israel, that are developing best practices in the field of science for early childhood. Our program is designed for families with young children ages 0 to 8. Science Fun for the Holidays is a web-based resource center for families to find science activities related to upcoming Jewish holidays that are fun, meaningful, developmentally appropriate and can be easily performed at home. We encourage families to stop and enjoy the Jewish holidays through your child's eyes using exploration, observation, and scientific inquiry.
The scientific topics were chosen based upon two criteria: based upon whether the activities are developmentally appropriate, and also based upon whether the general "big" ideas are meaningful to families and connected to the holiday.
We are inspired by the work of 2011 Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Professor Dan Shechtman, who is now working with our Israeli partners of the Boston-Haifa Early Childhood Educator's Connection to develop curricula and programs that promote science education from an early age. Examples of the curricula were provided at a teacher's workshop at the Technoda science museum in Haifa and at Israeli preschools where classroom environments were created to engage students in science, technology, math, engineering, and nature. We hope that the work that Professor Shechtman and the Haifa educators have done will give young Jewish American families a stimulating connection to Jewish holidays and traditions through science.
We hope that the resources provided here will ignite your curiosity and enhance your engagement with the Jewish holidays.
Linna Ettinger
Jewish Education Consultant
Rachel Raz
Director, Early Childhood Institute
Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education of Hebrew College
Roy Ayalon
Assistant Director, Early Childhood Institute
Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education of Hebrew College
