Dear Parents,
   This week in our classroom we continued to learn and explore about animals.  A lot of our activities this week focused on building and refining our gross and fine motor skills which our friends really enjoyed.  We also did some hebrew letter and english letter recognition with puzzles and matching games.   Here are some highlights of our week.

Block Center/Gross motor

  In our Block area this week we had a farm with animals and tractors.  The children used the tractors to drive around the farm and put the animals into different corrals in the farm.   The children were also invited to sort the animals. The Morahs asked "do you think there is enough space for all these animals to live together?  Do you think they will all play together?"  Our friends are using eye/hand coordination and upper body resistance as they move the tractors and animals around the farm.  Our friends also enjoyed making animals noises as they played. 

We enjoyed playing a bean bag animal toss game.  Using a recycled wipes box we created an animal head (bear) and some bean bags.  The children took turns tossing the beanbags in the bear's mouth.  Bean bag play works on developing balance and coordination. We also learn about turning taking and social skills and following multiple directions.  We extended this game into playing catch with one another.  The children partnered up and took turns tossing the bags back in forth to each other this was a great hit. 

Art/Gross motor

This week for art our friends worked on tractor painting outside with the Peach Room.  Butcher paper was taped to the ground and paint was set out .  The children were invited to dip the tractor wheels in paint and roll it on the paper.

Inside the classroom our friends used rolling pins covered in rubber bands to paint with.  They dipped the rolling pins in paint and rolled it around the paper.  Afterwards we took the time to explore the variety of stripes each child created.  We also used this as an opportunity to talk about all the different animals that have stripes.

This week we also took some play animals and paint and the children dipped the animals feet into the paint and tracked them around a paper.  We compared footprints.  We discovered some animals have hooves others have claws, and some even have hands and feet that look like ours!  All these activities highlight to our friends the different kinds of animals that we have in the world.  They learn about the features of some animals through these art and sensory experiences.

Playdoh/Fine motor and literacy

Our friends enjoyed rolling out play doh onto their trays and then using cookie cutters to cut out letters and different shapes like ovals, triangles, squares, and circles.  Our friends strengthen their little muscles in their fingers to prepare for future skills such as gripping a pencil to write and draw.

Friday was a special day!  Along with Shabbat Sing a long our friends got a visit from a few animals that we have been learning about over the week. Check Facebook for pictures.  Wishing a restful Shabbos, Morah Felicia and Morah Menucha