Dear Parents

This week we began to introduce Chanukah through storybooks. The words and concepts we are working on with the children are Chanukah, Menorah and Dreidel. Angie and Madison said, "Menorah" and Yehonathan  said, "Chanukah" very clearly. We are noticing many exciting language developments in all of the children.

Morah Ora created a Menorah on our floor using tape. Our friends will be using this "walk the line" - a fun gross motor activity targeting body awareness, motor planning, balance, coordination and listening skills. We will also use our tape Menorah to mark each day of Chanukah by adding tape candles and flames.

We 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 sorted them by color and broken vs. non-broken. We saved all of our broken candles from this work and our friends created a group collage on canvas using candles and bits of wax and wick.

Another fun art and sensorial experience this week was a group art project using their feet and paint. There was a lot of laughter and excitement and careful dancing because it was so slippery! We have moved our latke cooking into our kitchen area and added a dreidel chair that spins for fun gross motor play. Ella, Yehonathan and Angie couldn't get enough of spinning like dreidels- they loved it! Madison was observing them thoughtfully and decided she wanted to give it a try. It was good experience in turn taking. Our friends love swinging and spinning and it is important to their vestibular development for their sense of balance. And it really is just fun!

We are excited to see everyone at Dreidels for Dads next  Friday morning from 9-10am. Happy Chanukah!

Shabbot shalom

Morah Ora and Morah Goldie.

Thanksgiving is coming!

Dear parents, with fall in the air and Thanksgiving around the corner, this week we use our senses to discover and investigate a pumpkin. Our friends took turns touching the outside of the pumpkin, they noticed that the texture was mostly soft with a few bumpy rough patches around the pumpkin. Then we felt the inside. The texture was completely different!

Spice Exploration
This was a class favorite! We used our sense of smell, sight, and touch to explore and create a scent collage with spices. Our friends had a chance to smell each of the spices. They then decided which ones they wanted to use to create their own scent collage.

Yehonathan preferred the cinnamon, Ella really like the cumin, Angie liked both the color and the scent of the paprika.They experimented using paint and stamp brushes to spread the glue before sprinkling the spice of their choice. We talked about how we use spices when we cook our favorite food at home.

Thanksgiving
Our friends have been practicing using kindness with our friends and Morahs. We talked about the mitzvos that our friends did at home and practiced using mitzvah hands, mitzvah feet, and our mitzvah mouth at school.

Dear parents, we hope to see you at the Thanksgiving lunch on Wednesday at 11:30!

Shabbat Shalom - Morah Ora and Morah Goldie

Dear parents, 

This week our friends did different activities with transportation. Every morning of this week our friends matched the transportation puzzles, specifically Yehonathan enjoyed these puzzles a lot!

Then our friends took their cars to the car wash in our sensory table where there was soapy water and sponges.  Angie and Madison were scrubbing their cars to make sure they were super clean. When our friends were done cleaning their cars they took pretend people for a ride around the classroom.

Another great activity our friends did was painting with cars. They stretched, walked, crossed the middle line, and drove their cars right through the paint during this gross motor activity. We also made our own traffic lights and Morah explained to our friends the safe way to cross the streets.

We would like to thank our kindergarten friends and their Morah for making such a delicious soup to wish us a happy Rosh-Chodesh.

Shabbat shalom! -Morah Ora and Morah Goldie

Dear parents, 

This week in the peach room our friends had so many fun activities with animals. We had farm animals in the sensory table with sand and different size scoopers to find and name them all.

The next day we washed and scrubbed animals with sponges and toothbrushes which our friends enjoyed! With the beautiful weather outside Morah likes to set some activities outside for our other classroom friends to join in and play together with us.

We brought wild animals with white paint and black paper, each friend picked an animal they liked and dipped it in the white paint and then stamped it on the black paper to see the different foot shapes each animal has. We spoke about how animals and people have different shaped feet, some are longer than others, some are wider than others.

This week we learned about Parshas Noah. Morah Ora made a make-shift ark out of a big cardboard box with cut out windows. We took turns peaking through the windows and said hello to our friends and Morah’s. Then Morah added a bridge to our ark. Our friends took turns going inside the ark and balancing their bodies on the bridge. These activities help our friends build some motor skills!

On Friday our friends went outside to play with the animals in the petting zoo! We were so excited to be able to pet our beautiful animals and hear all the different types of sounds they make, and feel how different each animal feels.

The peach room would like to thank Yehonathan for donating the new animals and magnatiles for our friends to play with! Thank you so much!!

Good Shabbos!
Morah Ora and Morah Goldie