All About Me

Dear Parents,

    This week we started our All About Me unit.  Thank you all for bringing in your child's items, we will be sharing them through out the two weeks of our unit.  

Here are some highlights of our week:

Sensory 

Our  sensory table was filled with assorted color balloons and different sensory materials such as flour, rice, sand, and pom poms.  The children were invited to pour the materials inside the balloons to make their own emotion squeeze balls.  We drew different face emotions on the balloons and encouraged the children to try and mimic the face on the balloon.  Doing a variety of activities with emotions can help children learn how to self-regulate when they are frustrated.  The Morahs give children the words to describe the different emotions on each balloon.   

Our friends were invited to create faces with play doh and loose parts. We looked in mirrors for inspiration.  We reviewed the parts of our face and discussed what kind of face we will make.  

Group project

This week we discovered another body part to paint with, our feet! Oak tags were laid on the floor with some red and yellow paint and the children were invited to explore the texture and consistency with their feet and in between their toes.  The morahs asked the children thoughtful questions like, "How does the paint feel when you  stand on your tip toes?  "What impression does that make?"  One friend said, "I can see my foot."  Morah also asked, "I wonder how we can use our feet to mix the colors?"  and a friend stomped in a pile of red paint and then a pile of yellow paint and then slid her feet side to side.   As she did so she discovered a whole new color she had made.   We do our best to ask insightful and open-ended questions.  This stretches the child's innate curiosity, reasoning ability, and creativity.  Open-ended questions give our friends opportunities to expand their vocabulary and express their feelings. 

Blocks

Pictures of all of our friends were taped on blocks along with pictures of different houses.  We set out the blocks and pictures on the floor as an invitation to build.  Our friends enjoyed interacting with their "block friends" and built train tracks for their friends to ride on.  These authentic pictures created a stage for more imagination and enhanced their play.

Our week was fun and full of body/face emotion exploration and we are eager to continue with our unit next week.
Wishing you a peaceful Shabbos!
Morah Felicia and Morah Ora

A New School Year

Dear Parents,

     Welcome to the Blue Room!  We are excited to start a new school year with new and returning friends.  These first 2 weeks our friends were introduced to their environment.  They became familiar with some of the materials and are working on putting materials back in their "homes." We have also established a morning drop off routine, and have had time to adjust to the daily schedule. 

Here are some highlights:

Sensory

We start the day with free exploration, this means all of the children have ample time to play and discover activities set up in each center.  Our Sensory table is quite the hit with all of the children in our class.  This week we filled it with rice, Mr. Potato head pieces, scoops, and buckets. Our friends had fun building faces as we reviewed and built up our vocabulary by naming parts of the face and body.  Our friend Zelda and Scarlet especially enjoyed scooping up rice and pouring it into buckets. One day Scarlet took some rice to the kitchen and filled a bowl and put it on the stove to cook!

Art
This week in the Art center glue sticks were introduced to the class.  The Morahs modeled how to use the glue sticks and the children were given the opportunity to create art with glue and foam letters.  Hailey and Maddie were first to discover this area.  They practiced multiple step directions putting glue on the foam, turning the foam over and then sticking it to the paper. The girls noticed that the glue was purple and colored the tops of the their letters too. Then they discovered the purple disappeared after a couple of minutes! Setting up only two spots to work at this center also gave us great practice with turn taking.  Shai and Ella waited so patiently for their friends Maddie and Hailey to be done.  When Ella finally had her turn, the Morahs observed her put the glue up to her lips, Morah asked, "What are you doing, Ella?"  Ella says, "putting on lipstick."  Our friends enjoyed learning and  practicing their gluing skills.  This work will be available on the shelves for them to use any time during free exploration.

Group Project
In our class we encourage messy projects!  On two days this week the Morahs invited all of our friends to finger paint.  Each friend had a plate of paint for themselves and again, the morahs modeled how the could use their hands and fingers then press it to our canvas (which in this case a cut out tree).  All of our friends were willing to explore. They enjoyed squishing the paint between their fingers, or slathering paint on the their hands then clapping them together to watch the paint splat.  Mila and Yehonathan appeared a bit hesitant using one or two fingers at a time to paint then dabbing the paint onto the tree with their fingertips.  Daniel twirled his fingers in circles tracing the paint plate until it was completely covered.  Rivkale used her hands to paint our tree, then took some more paint and painted both of arms .  Morah asked, "How does that feel?" Rivkale answers, "Good!"   Our friends worked collaboratively and together painted our tree.  After our tree was painted we glued some sticks and tree bark that we collected from our outdoor environment.  We will use this tree to represent and display our classroom family.

Next week we start an All About Me unit.  We ask that you send some items in from home such as old clothes your child used to wear as babies, pet photos, and your child's favorite book to share during class meetings.   Just a friendly reminder that class starts at 9:00am.  Morahs work hard to prepare the classroom for the day and use the time from 8:45-9 to get everything set up.  Early care is available for any one who needs it, please contact Masha for details. 

Thank you for all of your support! We are looking forward to another great week.  Wishing you a restful Shabbos, Morah Felicia and Morah Ora