It's Challah Time!

Dear Families,

It's Challah Time!

This week our friends were invited to the table to practice their skills with kneading and rolling play dough. Our friends chose to use different methods to make their challah.

Some friends rolled the dough into three snakes to make a three-braided challah. Some chose to use different shapes to make their dough into a circle, square, or triangle.

Challah Boards

Our friends used permanent markers to color their own plates, and then we added an alcohol solution using eye droppers for some excellent fine motor practice. Our friends were surprised to see how the colors started mixing and spreading all over the plate.This project provided fine motor, hand-eye coordination, writing, and science exploration and they turned out beautifully!

Challah Covers

Our friends worked on challah covers to cover their challahs on their Shabbos tables. Peach Room friends were seated by the table where they had a tray prepared for them with material and tie dye bottles. Our friends were so focused on squeezing the bottles with the colors of their choice to create beautiful splatter art. Then they stamped the word "Shabbos" on them with help from their morahs. 

Sensory Table

In our sensory table this week, we have been washing dishes. This is a favorite activity and when we added it to the small sink in dramatic play, there was not enough space for all of our friends who wanted to participate. We moved it to the sensory table in response to their enthusiasm.

 

Thank you for sending vegetables for our chicken soup! We cannot wait to make it next week! We will also be working on the last step for our Shabbos box.

We hope you all can join us next Friday for Shabbos party at 9:00am on the grass!!!

Shabat Shalom,

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky

Special Day!

Dear Families,

Our discussion continues about Shabbos and how special Shabbos is to us. This week, we focused on what we do in preparation for this day.

After snack, Morahs prepared a bin with water and soap.We had different kinds of sponges to choose from. Everyone enjoyed scrubbing their chairs and cleaning the table.

Some friends asked Morahs for a mop and broom.

You can feel how important it is to us to bring Shabbos to our classroom.

In our dramatic play, we continued practicing lighting shabbos candles and pouring grape juice for ourselves and our friends.

The girls showed interest in wearing beautiful skirts and th boys wanted to wear kippahs.

In our block area we had a small world of people including a family of Rabbi and Rebbetzin. Our friends brought them inside their small house and even took them on a ride in our play trucks. Some friends said that they look like Rabbi Dietch!! It was a pleasure to hear them talking and identifying

that this rabbi looks like Rabbi Dietch.

This week our friends worked to create candle holders for their Shabbos boxes. In the sensory table they scooped colored sand into small glass jars. Again, they selected the colors, they chose the order and how much sand they wanted to use as they layered it into their jars. We asked them to identify which colors they wanted and which they were using as we worked. Then they helped squeeze glue onto the top and stick the foil funnel into the sand and glue, completing their candle holders! While this project was related to Shabbos, our big idea, we also worked on hand-eye coordination and learning colors. They turned out beautifully, and we can't wait to send them home once their Shabbos Boxes are complete!

Next week we are planning to make chicken soup for Shabbat in our classroom. Please encourage your child to pick one vegetable from your fridge to bring to the Peach Room.

Thank you in advance!

Your friends love to play and pretend to cook. They will be so happy to make real soup! 

Shabbat Shalom

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky

Dear Families,

This week we continued exploring Shabbat.

Challah

This week we worked on using a pincer grasp. Pincer grasp is an important fine motor skill used for day to day things like gripping a pencil or using silverware. We started out by using hand over hand to help them place cranberries or raisins on the "challah" loaves using fingers, then worked up to using plastic tweezers. By the end of the week it was exciting to see most of them had mastered some level of this skill. We extended this provocation by helping them count the raisins both in English and Hebrew. Then the children even got to eat their work! Yum!

Science & Sensory Exploration

 Last week we had water in our sensory bin with washing cups, our friends had so much fun practicing pouring water from one cup to another and washing their hands, we decided to continue this activity and let our friends have more fun through learning.

Due to some friends being homesick we decide not to do another project to our Shabbos box. We want to wait until all our friends feel better and are able to join us in creating a project with all their peach room friends.The CJP Family cares about all of our friends!

 

On Thursday we had a big birthday celebration. In the morning friends helped Morahs bake a cake for Leeann's birthday party. Cooking in the classroom provides so many opportunities for turn taking, measuring, stirring...it is the ultimate science experiment. They enjoyed the group cooking/baking experience. We then danced and ran around the classroom to try to catch some bubbles and play with balloons.

 

Happy Birthday Leeann! It was a pleasure to celebrate your birthday with you!

Shabbat Shalom

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky.