Introduction to Purim

Dear Parents,
  This week in the Blue room we prepared to introduce the next big holiday, Purim.

Basket Design 

One of our fine motor activities this week was basket weaving.  Our used friends cut up pieces of foam and empty baskets to weave the strips of foam through the holes of the baskets.  Through weaving our friends learn patterning, critical thinking skills, and problem solving.  Weaving in and out in a pattern, helps to refine their eye/hand coordination.  They also cross the midline, which reinforces brain development between the right and left hemispheres.

Palace building

Our friends use geometric shapes to build their own palaces on mirrors. Building on mirrors is great to add dimension and a new perspective while working. 

Art 

This week in the art center our friends decorated their own festive masks.  The children had the opportunity to create unique Purim masks using paints, sparkly stickers and feathers.  Next we will add sticks so our friends can hold them up to their faces.

Group project

We painted and made crowns for costumes inspired by a the book, 'Sammy Spider's First Purim.'  Our friends have shown great progress in learning how to share.  Morah Felicia only set out 3 plates of paint and there were six friends painting.  Everyone worked beautifully together without any conflict arising! Way to go!

Math

This week we played a game with a Purim die.  This game provided many opportunities for learning including literacy, self regulation, and math. 

First we named all the images on the die and asked our friends to repeat them back. We repeated this step several times. This was great to introduce holiday vocabulary words such as gragger and hamentashen. 

Next one at a time our friends rolled the die to see what picture was face up.  They matched the picture to the corresponding picture on the master sheet.

Lastly our friends took turns collecting data of each roll!

Sensory 

At our sensory table this week we explored and discovered sound.  With different size bottles and cans we added different loose parts to the containers to make various sounds.  Some sounds were loud and some were soft.   Next week we'll learn when to shake and make noise with our silly graggers. 

With our newly updated outdoor classroom and the weather being so sunny our friends have been playing hard and getting muddy and messy in the mud kitchen outside.  All of our friends are in need of  more sunblock.  We apply everyday before we head out to protect us from that az sun.  Thank you to all who have dropped off their art gifts for our class Purim basket. If you haven't already you still have time!  

As always thank you for a great week.  Wishing you all a peaceful and restful weekend. Shabbat Shalom, Morah Felicia and Morah Kayla