Dear Parents,
It's been a fun week in the Blue Room! Here are some highlights:
Rosh Hashana
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 to wish them a sweet a new year too. The Morahs 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 to others. Our friends investigated the shofar in our classroom. Some friends take turns trying so hard to blow and others feel the rough bumpy texture.
Our friends play a Rosh Hashana matching game. First Morah says the object on the card and lays it down. Then the second pair of cards are mixed up and handed out to each child without the picture showing. Finally each child takes a turn turning over their card and finding the match. This is a very complex process for a two-year-old mind, which involves expanding vocabulary, learning to self regulate as they wait for their turn, matching words to pictures, and sorting images into categories.
Discovery Table
We set up a discovery table with all things Rosh Hashana related such as apples, honey, shofars, and a variety of pictures. Our friends were invited to explore the materials. The discovery table is one of the first things the children see when they come into our class in the morning. Through exploring and investigating these authentic objects, our friends begin to build their own experiences with them and create a basis of knowledge to form categories, vocabulary, and descriptions of each item in their minds.
Play-Dough
This week we made a fresh batch of special honey play dough! It smelled so sweet and reminded us of asking Hashem for a sweet New Year. The children enjoyed playing and creating with play dough as they built their fine motor skills.
Literacy/Art
We read several books this week and chose to focus on one titled, 'I have a Jewish Name.' After we read this book, we painted mats that had our own names on them. We will use them to help us sit in our own space when we Daven.
Blocks
For our Rosh Hashanah unit our friends were invited to build their own shul for Rosh Hashanah in the block center. Throughout the week our friends created different towers that represented their own shul.
Art
Our friends were invited to create Shona Tova cards for their families. Paints, apples, and paper were set out for the children to use and explore. Our friends were encouraged to use the apples to paint their cards. It was interesting to watch each child and how they used the apples to paint in a different way. Some children used the apples to stamp, others used a smearing technique, and another child rolled their apple across their paper. Soon their exploration progressed into finger, hand, and whole body painting! The cool, smooth, wet texture of the paint was irresistible on Wednesday!
Science
Our friends explore parts of the apple in a science taste experiment. We went over parts of the apple such as the skin that covers the outside of the apple, the flesh, which is the white part that's inside the apple the apple, the core and the seeds. Our friends used their sense of sight, touch, and smell to examine the apple. We also worked on expanding our descriptive words to describe the way the apple felt, looked, and tasted. We used words such as smooth to the touch of our hands, crunchy to the sound as we chewed, and sweet to the taste in our mouths. We discovered a similarity between an apple and a ball: they are both round and they can both roll. After our apple exploration we took pieces of the apple and dipped them in honey. We talked about how on Rosh Hashana we dip apples in honey because it's so sweet and we want to ask Hashem for a sweet New Year.
Next week we will continue to explore the Rosh Hashana holiday.
Wishing you a safe and healthy Shabbos.
Morah Felicia and Morah Shayna.
