Yom Kippur

Dear Parents, 

This week in the blue room we explored the next high holiday, Yom Kippur.   During Rosh Hashanah we learned that we want to ask Hashem for help to be the best we can be.  Yom Kippur is when we ask all our friend's forgiveness for any wrong we may have done towards them.  During Yom Kippur we also hear the story of Yonah and the Big Fish.   Morah Kayla tells us about Yonah and his journey to Ninveh.

                                                                                Group Project
For our group project  we gathered rocks and sticks from the playground, assorted color paints, and paintbrushes to paint.  We will later add these loose parts materials to our block area for extended open ended play.

With Sukkot being the next holiday in this busy month, we will explore it further in the upcoming week. 

Thanks for a great week. 
Morah Felicia and Morah Kayla

Exploring Rosh Hashanah

Dear Parents,

This week in our class we continued to to explore and learn about Rosh Hashanah.  We focused on some practices of Rosh Hashanah.

Sensory
Our Sensory Table was turned into an apple preparation center.  Our friends washed pink lady apples with soapy water to get them so clean before peeling and cutting them to dip in honey and eat.

The sensory table allows our friends to enrich their vocabulary.  By adding new materials and allowing them to explore and discover, we learn new words.  

 Group Projects
On Monday our group project was a still life apple painting.  Still life drawings are valuable because our friends use something that is real and meaningful as a guide tor their own creative expression.  This activity challenges our friend's ability to look at the finer details in the everyday objects that are familiar to them.

Another group project this week was apple stamping.  Our friends created apple prints while following a two step direction and using eye/hand coordination.  Moving their hand from the paint plate onto their paper requires our friends to focus and coordinate their hand movement with their eye movement.  Lastly, this activity teaches cause and effect.  Demonstrating to our friends the plain apple and what happens after dipping it into paint to create a print on their paper.  

Circle Time
During circle time we played a matching game .  Our friends take turns matching items they see on Rosh Hashanah.  Zoe found the Machzor!

Morah Kayla teaches us about the special prayer book used on Rosh Hashanah, called the Machzor.

Thank you everyone for an awesome week.  Shabbat Shalom.
Morah Felicia and Morah Kayla

Introducing Rosh Hashana

Dear Parents,
        We started this short week off by officially welcoming Morah Kayla to our class.  She will be joining us for the rest of the year enriching our curriculum with more Judaism. With Rosh Hashana around the corner, this week we introduced some concepts about the Holiday through our centers and morning circle times.   In morning circles we discussed how Rosh Hashana is the new year, a new beginning.  Just like we had a first day of school we have a first day of a new year.  We  ask Hashem for help to become our best self and for a sweet new year. We do this by blowing the shofar, eating sweet foods like apples dipped in honey, or sending cards to our family and friends, saying Shana Tova wishing them a sweet a new year too.   Morah Kayla explained the shofar comes from a Ram and when we blow the shofar we can think of a mitzvah that we can do to be a better friend and more helpful.  Rabbi T. has made visits to our classroom to blow the shofar.  All of our friends giggled at the sound it makes.  They all agreed it sounds funny.   Our friends investigated the shofar in our classroom.  Some friends take turns trying so hard to blow and others feel the rough bumpy texture.

                                                         

                                                                Art Center
We started making Shana Tova cards for our family and friends.   Saying Shana Tova means we're wishing them a sweet new year.  Jemma  is coloring a card for her grandma.

                                                                 
                                                                Table Top
Hammond is ready to work everyday when he comes into class.   On Wednesday he found an Alef Beis provocation.  He selected different magnetic letters from the basket and they stuck to his work tray! It wasn't long after he started that he found a match!  Lammed!

Thanks for another great week.  Shabbat Shalom
Morah Felicia and Morah Kayla

Exploring Centers

Dear Blue Room Parents,
         Here's what we did this week in class.  Amongst the girls in the blue room, we've observed a high interest in the babies.  We wanted to incorporate babies and expand the play into other centers besides the housing in Dramatic Play.  In the Block Center our invitation was, 'How can we build a bed for a sleepy baby?'  Each day a set of new materials was brought in to create beds for our babies.  Lindsey started off her bed by using cans making sure each one had a lid. Once the cans were all gone she moved on to wood chips stacking two to three on top of each other.  After those were gone she finished the bed with a long piece of fabric.   Mina and Zoe worked together to get their baby bed made using big cardboard boxes and fabric.

 On another day pool noodles were set out to see what kinds of beds we could make with those.  We pieces of pvc pipes to connect the pool noodles together.  All of our friends worked together for a good 15 minutes building different structures that bent and curved.  Some objectives were working together, building gross motor, encouraging interest in building structures and creating imaginative play, and problem solving.

                                                                    Sensory
Half of the week our friends had fun with Baby Bath time.  First our friends used soap and wash cloths to scrub and make their babies so nice and clean.   A couple of challenges that occurred were keeping the water inside the table and using too much soap.  When our friends were done scrubbing we reminded them how important it was to dry the floor with a towel so nobody would slip and fall.  Morah Briele also made the count to 2 rule for pouring soap.  Our friends can pour and count to 2 and have enough soap in their hands.  Jemma and Tzipi loved drying their babies off and putting on soap.   We had fun with water while building self care skills as well as empathy.

 The second half of the week in the Sensory Table was sand.  Our friends searched for animals along with shaping and molding sand into different structures using pales, shovels, and our hands.  Mina gathered all of her animals she found, and grouped them together naming the animals as she found them, "It's called a lion.  It's called a Giraffe!"  Hammond found a Hippo and decided to hide it in his castle.

 Group project
Open ended Process Art projects allows friends to be creative, plan, problem solve, express emotions, focus, develop self regulation, and strengthen fine motor skills, it's all about the process and not the product, so we do a lot of it.  This week we used alef beis letters to explore with paint.  we stamped then ended using our hands after discovering how cool and wet the texture of the paint felt.

Along with the this project we read a book called, 'My Very Own Letter.'  We learned that we each get our own special Hebrew letter in the Torah! Does your child have their own letter? If not please speak to Masha and she will help you get signed up.  Can you share our friends Hebrew letters and names to the class?

                                                      Social
On Tuesday morning our friend Zoe was feeling extra sad after saying bye to her mommy.  Saya, who had been busy coloring at table looked from the picture she was coloring and noticed Zoe was feeling sad.  She said, "It's okay Zoe, Mommy be back later.  Mommy always comes back."

When we sat down for lunch Jemma was so excited that she had pizza!  She announced to her friends, "I have pizza!"  Lindsey replied, "My family and me eat pizza for dinner too, it's my favorite.  Everybody loves pizza."   

 Thanks for another great week.  Shabbat Shalom from the Blue Room