Dear Families,

This week we worked on our Shabbos boxes. We implemented Shabbat concepts in our provocations and play. Here are some highlights of our week.

 

Loving Literacy

Our friends have taken a great interest in reading books together this week. We read Shabbat 123 and My First Shabbat Book during snack time. We also read several books that were about showing kindness to our peers. The children have been loving story time and during play time, they have chosen to adventure off on their own with a book of their choice. Hearing stories out loud, and then "reading" a book to themselves from memory is an important pre-literacy skill.

 

Art Exloration

As we are working on our Shabbos boxes, the children have been making a few art projects. We exercised our fine motor skills while finishing our candle holders by stacking stone blocks and squeezing glue bottles so that they stick to a mirror holder. Both of these skills are important for building muscles in the hands that will help with writing later on. We also colored the blessings that we will include in each Shabbat box. The children have been learning and seeing what is used during Shabbat.

Math Challenge

This week we continued working with numbers 1-5. We noticed that the children love to exercise their pincer grasp skills by pull pieces of tape so we allowed this interest to bridge their fine motor exploration into math skills by placing several pieces of painters tape on the table with the numbers 1 through 5 on different mats. The children peeled the small bits of tape off the table and matched the appropriate amount with each number symbol. This was a good visual learning activity and they were able to match each number to the tape. We even learned how to count to 5 on our hands!

 

Outdoor Exploration

During our outdoor play time, the children have been LOVING music! We played songs such as Baby Shark, Head, shoulders, knees and toes, gummy bear and much more. Our friends enjoyed dancing to each song and sharing a lot of fun and laughter! We explored all the different ways our bodies move in large ways. The morahs guided the children with different motions, fast and slow paces, as well as cross-body actions that help connect brain and body movements.

We hope you have a wonderful Shabbat!

Morah Lexi & Morah Shaina