Wrapping up Chanukah

Dear Parents,

This week wrapped up out Chanukah unit with preparing potatoes for latkes, painting with olives and oil, and trying to make our very own olive oil! Here are some highlights of our week:

Sensory 

Our Peach and Blue room friends love sensory play.  

This week we were busy scrubbing potatoes to make them nice and clean for latkes!  Some friends enjoyed it so much they moved on to scrubbing all the tables as well. 

Discovery

 This week we greeted our friends with olives and olive oil.  Our friends were invited to touch, smash, and even taste the olives.  The Morahs talked about how olives were so special because they make oil.  Like the oil the Maccabees found in the temple.  They experimented with the olives by squeezing and observing the drips of oil or the effects of their actions.  The children were fascinated by the texture of the olive; it's slippery property and how that made it difficult to hold and squeeze.  Later we asked the children, "Do you think we can make oil out of the olives?"  and we tried by smashing them in a jar.

  

Then we extended our exploration into the art center and painted with oil.  The children were encouraged to stick their brushes though the olive and dip their paintbrush into the olive oil to begin an open-ended art exploration.  Having the olive on the brush reminded them that it comes from or is a derivative of olives!

  

We so much fun on the Chanukah Scavenger Hunt with you all! Thanks for joining in the fun.  We hope you  enjoy your winter break with your families!  We will see everyone in January.   

As always wishing you a restful Shabbos.

Morah Ora and Morah Felicia  

Continuing Chanukah

 Dear Parents, 

This week Blue and Peach rooms finished up their menorahs to take home and light on the first night of Chanukah, mailed off our Chanukah cards to our loved ones, and stayed in the Chanukah spirit with activities we did in the classroom.  Here are some highlights of our busy week:

Art

Our friends enjoyed exploring sticky glue and candles!  Everyone was invited to make a candle collage on cardstock.  Our friends chose the candles they wanted to use, rolled them in glue and chose where to  stick them.  Some friends liked breaking their candles into smaller pieces to add.  This was a great sensory experience. We also practiced counting as our friends placed them on their boards. 

 

Menorahs

This week the Morahs helped their friends finish up their beautiful Menorahs that we hope your family will enjoy and use for years to come.  As Morah Ora helped her friends, she went over how tolight the Menorah for 8 days at our house as we eat yummy latkes, and doughnuts to remember the miracle of oil.  We also played with dreidels and shared presents with family and friends. 

   

Blue room friends using homemade stained glass paint made out of clear glue and watercolor to paint and create their Menorahs.  We discussed the importance of keeping our Menorah Kosher with the placement and lining of each candle. They know that the Shamash is the helper candle and needs to be higher than the rest.

  

Math/Fine motor

Some friends enjoyed color sorting this week. A tray with assorted paper dreidels with a bowl of different colored dreidels.  Our friends were encouraged to match the colorful dreidels to corresponding colors on the tray.  Color matching is a great basic math skill we are learning and building upon. 

 

Working with playdoh is not only fun but also an awesome way to build those fine motor skills needed later on for gripping a pencil and writing.  Our friends enjoyed making Chanukah "cookies" and menorahs out of playdoh. After reading a book about Chanukah cookies our friends were eager to try and make their own. 

Next week we will continue to explore concepts of Chanukah.  We enjoyed learning and playing with all of our friends this week.  Wishing you a restful Shabbos, 

Morah Ora and Morah Felicia

Chanukah!

This week we began to introduce Chanukah through storybooks. The words and concepts we are working on with our friends are Chanukah, Menorah and dreidel. 

The first project of the week was making Chanukah cards for our dear grandparents!

We had stamping pads with Chanukah symbols, markers and paint stamping dots. Our friends were invited to the table to choose what they wanted to use to color their cards .

Mika likes to use markers, she opens and closes the marker all by herself.

Avigail used paint  dots the most to make so many dots on her card.

Ariel took two markers and was going in circular directions to create so many circles .

Daria tried everything that we had  on the table .

Our cards full of Chanukah spirit!! 

Morah Ora created a Menorah on our floor using tape. Our friends will be using this for "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 explored candle wax through fine motor play with candles and our menorah. We used real candles, and the children 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. 

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 will be exploring more about Chanukah in the next few weeks with so many projects, activities, and celebrations.

Shabbot Shalom,

 Morah Ora, & Morah ,Chaya. 

Meaningful project

Dear parents,

I’m so sorry I wasn’t in school these past couple of days, due to my kids not feeling well. BH They are feeling much better now.
Thank you for understanding!

Let me tell you a little about our gratitude project that we were working on in the past couple of weeks. Like I said in my previous newsletter, we were using different techniques to paint rocks.

This project is very meaningful to us because our friends did them by themselves with joy, happiness and a smile on their faces.
Each rock looks different just like we do.

 I (Morah Ora) always take pictures of our friends when they do meaningful activities
like sharing toys, giving each other hugs, enjoying food or playing with friend.

This time we printed them out and we will stick them on the rocks to remind us of kindness.
Our projects are getting delayed and we will be finishing them on Monday. They will be sent home after that.

Dear parents, I'm so grateful to be a part of the CJP family and to be a Morah to your little one .

 

Happy Thanksgiving and Shabbat Shalom !!
Morah Ora & Mora Chaya.