Chanukah Preparations

We have had a busy week despite some of our friends being out due to sickness. We miss them and hope they feel better soon so they can come back to play with us! With the cooler temperatures we have enjoyed a few extra minutes of time spent in our beautiful outdoor environment which has meant that Angie has been able to join us briefly on the playground. We used dreidels to paint with and the children loved to watch the designs they created as they spun around on the paper with the paints. We are working on a special Chanukah project as a surprise for our families!

In the classroom we have been using our lightbox with a menorah and also for building with the transparent magnatiles. We have some fun activities planned for next week using oil with the lightbox as well.

We created a giant "frying pan" out of our ball pool that we have been using to "fry" our paper latkes with oil. The children are all getting quite skilled at flipping them! They enjoyed  how slippery the oil makes the latkes. We talked about how potatoes grow in the dirt in the ground and so we have to get them clean before we cook with them. We washed them in the sensory table with soap and water in preparation for making real latkes next week.

The children also explored candle wax through fine motor play with candles and our menorah. We used real candles and they have been practicing placing all eight candles in the menorah as well as the shamash candle. We counted the candles and did some sorting by color and broken vs. non-broken. We saved all of our broken candles from this work and the children created a group collage on canvas using candles and bits of wax and wick.

We also taste tested olives and talked about how we use the oil from olives for cooking but also to light the menorah during Chanukah. Their reactions were quite funny! Guy and Leah both really enjoyed the taste of olives. It was not Shyli's favorite...maybe a bit too salty. We will have Caleb and Angie try them today and Ronan when he returns to us, hopefully next week! Enjoy your weekend and thank you for your children, they are such a gift!

Morah Ora and Morah Lindsey