Pesach Pillows and Teddy Check-Ups

In the Peach Room this week we continued exploring Pesach. We started the week with art and we made pillows! During Pesach ,when we drink wine (or grape juice) we recline in our chair against a cushion. This is to remember that Jewish people are no longer slaves in Egypt and are free to relax and enjoy the goodness of life. We painted our pillows and stuffed them and Morah Shoshonna added each friend's name in Hebrew.

We are also becoming familiar with the Seder plate. Our Seder plate puzzle is very popular! We've also worked with velcro-matching Seder plated to learn about the foods that are found on the plate.

On Friday we made grape juice! Smashing grapes with our hands gave us a wet and sticky sensory experience.

We go to our classroom library often where we have, among others, several Pesach books that everyone likes to read over and again.  Sharing books as a whole group or with a friend is a much loved activity with all of our friends. The library has become a place  where    rich social interaction takes place as we read stories, point out                illustrations and negotiate turn taking and seating arrangements. Our    class really enjoys books!

In the dramatic play area we've taken care of teddy bears with stethescopes. This week we also attended sports with Coach Picachu and enjoyed a picnic lunch outdoors.

It's been a great week in the Peach room and we look forward to the next one!

Passover!

This week we started exploring Passover. We began by reading "If You Give a Frog Some Matzah" and we shared a matzah snack afterward. As we enjoyed this new food Geffen said "Cracker." and Minna said, "Crunch." which led to a discussion about the texture of matzah. We've placed bumpy cardboard squares in our dramatic play kitchen and our friends are beginning to make connections between the matzah and other Pesach items they see in our books and what we are using for play and discussion.  Our sensory tub was filled with flour this week and we talked about how we make matzah with flour and water. (Our friends were focused and engaged for quite some time scooping and pouring flour!)

We have offered several opportunities for play and exploration this week that give us the opportunity to observe, and the children opportunities to work on fine motor development. Fine motor development is the development of the small muscles in the hands and fingers. This development is important for skills like writing with a pencil, using a computer and a mouse and playing a musical instrument. We placed trays with coins and banks on the table and everyone was interested in sitting and dropping coins into the slot at the top of the bank. They also liked dropping corks into a bottle. Our water play outdoors is another great time for practice with this type of movement. We scoop, pour and dump and our friends can play at this for a long period of time in a very calm and focused way. 

In sports this week with Coach Picachu we had so much fun "climbing a mountain". We practiced climbing carefully and stepping over large foam blocks. We were also so happy to celebrate Mina's birthday this week! We made a birthday cake and enjoyed dancing and singing Happy Birthday!

Just as a reminder, Morah Ora is taking a trip to Isreal and will return when we all return from our spring/Passover break. Morah Shoshana who works in the green room will be helping in our classroom during this time.

Have a great weekend.  Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Ora and Morah Sydney

Exploring paint

This week in the Peach Room we've done a lot of sensory painting exploration. Monday morning we covered the table with bubble wrap. Our friends used toy cars to apply paint to the bubble wrap to make a bumpy road. Geffen, Scarlett and Caleb particularly enjoyed this new way to use familiar objects. We also tried stamping this week. We used soft foam blocks dipped in paint to create shapes on paper. Another day, we used cars again and experimented with rolling them through shaving cream -a much thicker texture than paint. And finally we "painted" with water. Using brushes we covered sheets of paper and watched it dry.

Our friends continue to enjoy jumping in the ball pit, throwing balls and naming the colors of the balls. They have also been very drawn to the puzzles we have set out this week.

It is heating up outside so we've taken the opportunity to play indoors in the bounce house. Some friends jumped right in while other took some time to get comfortable with it. But everyone left with a smile on their face! With the heat we're doing more and more water play outdoors. There is a lot of filling and pouring with various containers going on and this is generally a calming and very focused activity. We do however get wet! So please send extra clothes as we will be doing lots more of this play in the weeks to come.

We're looking forward to another wonderful week!





    

Purim is here!

This week in the Peach Room we began work on our fundraising Purim project. We put our bare feet in paint and walked across a wood plank making footprints as we pretended to cross a bridge. Mina, Scarlett and Zoe were brave as they balanced across the plank. Yochai felt unsure as he crossed so Zoe held his hand to help him cross. The next day our friends chose to make hand prints on the plank rather than footprints.

Wednesday we did sports outdoors with Coach Picachu. The children enjoyed bunny jumping and jumped across a series of squares on the lawn. They also had a turn to jump back and forth over a jump rope. Outdoors we also davened with our friends in the green room under the covered area.

We have been talking about Purim all week and have listened over and over to a Purim story with a predictable pattern and rhythm. The children love hearing the rhythmic repetitive language. One of the words we've been hearing a lot is hamentashen and on Thursday we joined the Green Room to make them! The children took turns putting ingredients in the bowl and stirring. When the dough was mixed we rolled it out and cut circles to fold into hamentashen. We baked them and they came out beautifully!

Our Purim celebration was so festive and we all had a great time!

Happy Purim to you all!

Morah Ora and Morah Sydney

P.S. Sorry there are no pictures this week, the pictures are all on the CJP family face book group.

Purim project

In the Peach Room we completed our second week of our Purim theme. Monday and Tuesday we decorated Purim crowns with stickers and pom poms. Mina and Scarlett liked putting stickers on their crowns and everyone enjoyed dipping pom poms in the glue!

On Tuesday we read the Purim story. Each child chose a mask of one of the characters to wear as we read. Yochai chose to be Mordechai, Geffen chose King Achashvarosh, Zoe was Queen Vashti, Mina Queen Esther, and Scarlett chose Haman. We also said goodbye to Morah Pearly as she left for New York. We sent her off with a beautiful goodbye book that we made for her.

The weather on Wednesday was sunny and bright and we went outdoors for sports with Coach Picachu. We began learning to use wiffle balls and lacrosse scoops and we practiced throwing our ball up to the sky and scooping it up. We also painted Purim masks and decorated them with sequins.

On Thursday and Friday we learned a new song about Purim. We stomped our feet on a mat of bubble wrap when we sang the name of Haman and we clapped our hands when we sang Achashvarosh. When we sang Mordechai we turned around and shouted "Hooray!". Some of our friends were excited about the new sensory experience of bubble wrap under their feet and others were not so sure!  While Geffen didn't care for the texture, Scarlett said, "I popped the bubbles with my feet and fingers."  Zoe said "I popped them too with my feet!" Mina liked to run on the bubbles.



This was Scarlett's first week of school and she is fitting in as if she has been with us all year! We are so happy to have her with us. This was a full and fun week and we are so looking forward to the next one. Shabbot Shalom.  - The Peach Room