Our First Week of School!

 Dear Parents,

This first week of school has been a great opportunity for all the morahs and students to start building a foundation of trust to have a successful school year. Exploring new environments and establishing new routines can be scary and takes some getting used to. Entering this new journey with love and patience for all is the key to success. 

The Routine

 

At the beginning of the day, the morahs greet each friend  at the classroom door with hugs and by saying, "Hello." Then we help each friend  by put their belongings away in their designated spot, wash hands, sign in and get to work. Establishing a routine so that children feel safe and comfortable to explore their own environment is the goal for this week and next week.

Classroom Exploration

Our friends were so excited to explore all of the centers in the classroom: the sensory bin, kitchen, library, slide and much more. 

Liran spent a lot of time in the art area. She drew some art work for our art wall.

Audrey and Leif had fun going up and down the slide .

Kai played with small balls and threw them in a bucket.

Asher loved spending time on the carpet playing and stacking cups.

 Group Project

 

Along with free exploration our friends came together and sat down for a group activity.  We incorporated some literacy with art.  Our friends used different color paint dots and markers to create a background for our English alphabet chart. We will hang up their work in the circle area for our friends to sing with and learn from.

Thank you for trusting us to guide your little ones. 

 
Shabbat Shalom! 
Morah Ora, Morah Rivky, & Morah Chaya.

Project and good bye school year of 2020-2021

Dear Parents,

 This week we focused on our last project of this school year! It will be displayed at the Moving Up Ceremony on Thursday.

This year's graduation theme is "Twinkle, Twinkle, You're a Star" from Conscious Discipline:

Twinkle, twinkle little star,

what are wonderful  child you are.

Every child is unique. Every child has different version of learning, exploring, and discovering what is around them.

 

Our friends were invited to do a science experiment on their unique star placed on a canvas.

First we brushed glue around our star. Then we took salt to sprinkle. Next we squeezed water colors with eye droppers on top and watched the paint spread.

Some friends enjoyed sprinkling the salt and even tasted it! Some friends enjoyed squeezing the eye droppers.

As we wrap up our school year, next week will be a short but busy week as we practice for moving up ceremony performances, and complete our projects. Thursday morning you are invited to attend our graduation celebration at 11:00am and our school year will come to a close with a 12:30pm dismissal. 

To our dear parents, thank you so much for a great year!

Shabbat Shalom

Have a great  summer! 

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya

 

Shavuot

 Dear Parents,

 This week in the Peach Room we introduced another Jewish holiday: Shavuos.

On Shavuos, we celebrate Hashem giving us the Torah on Har Sinai. Our friends were able to create their own beautiful Har Sinai out of foam tear, flowers, and rocks. It was so fun to see their imagination explode with their creations!  It is great sensory exploration for our friends to feel and mix all the different textures.

We celebrate Shavuot by decorating our home with flowers to remind us of how Hashem adorned Har Sinai with flowers. In the sensory table we had water, vases, and measuring cups. Our friends practiced their hand-eye coordination by filling their measuring cups and pouring water into the vase without spilling  water. This is also an exploration into math concepts related to volume.

 

With  discussion about the Torah this week, our friends took a trip to the big shul to see where we keep our big Torah full of mitzvahs.

We all give the Torah a kiss.

Another discussion this week was about how, on Shavuot, we take brake from meat, and we eat dairy instead. We made our own homemade ice cream! We used ice cream salt, milk, and vanilla extract. We put all the ingredients into a zip-loc bag full of ice and shake, shake, shake, shake! While we were shaking our bags we had music and movement with the song, "Hashem is Here." When we were done making ice cream we ate, and it was delicious! We heard some discussion about our friends experience: 

Ice is cold. 

I cant wait to taste!

I want ice cream!

Yummy!

It was so much fun to discover and explore about the holiday of Shavuos. Please remember that there is no school on Monday or Tuesday next week to observe Shavuos.

Shabbat Shalom & Happy Shavuos,

Morah Ora & Chaya. 

Happy Mother's Day!

 The Peach room has been learning all about babies this week! We filled our sensory tub with a bubble bath and gave our babies baths. We have tried our hand at changing our babies diapers, changing their clothes and bundled them up and put them to bed. All of this play with our babies has sparked other ideas for pretend play and we've taken our babies shopping, taken photos of our babies and put our babies to bed. Some of our friends have even engaged in play with roles ("I'm the mommy and you be the sister.")  We also learned the baby song, about putting the baby to bed and then taking care of  her when she wakes up. We take turns deciding when the baby needs to go back to sleep (a new diaper, a kiss, a bottle...).

As Mother's Day approaches we have been reading books about Mommies. Mommy and Me, Are You My Mother, and Teeny Weeny Looks for His Mommy are favorites. Mommy and Me has sparked some discussion about what we like to do with our mommies.

 We've also enjoyed working on a special project for our own mothers this week  to show them how thankful we are for them. 

With everything blooming outside, our friends really love to smell the flowers and bring them to the morahs. We thought it would be so nice to make something with flowers. Our friends picked some flowers in our playground, then we stuck them to sticky papers to create a sun catcher. Last, the morahs added a travel bracha so our mommies could hang it in their cars to travel safely.

Another project we did this week was painting picture frames using rolling paint brush with different textures. Then we added a picture with our mommies into it.

We ended our week by making Mother's Day cards with our hand prints; some friends even choose to use finger tips.

 We would like to thank you for your thoughtful kindness during Teacher Appreciation Week. Working with your children is engaging and joyful for us and we thank you for all of your support!  

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Mother's Day!

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya.

Our friends have been busy making final preparations for our  CJP Family Shabbos Morning.  We worked so hard on completing our Shabbos Box projects which were on display and sent home with them on Friday. As Morahs, we provided the provocations and materials for each of these projects, but they are truly the product of your child's creativity, preferences and work. Each one turned out so uniquely and beautifully. We are proud of their hard work and hope you will be too!

The project of this week was making a challah cover .To cover our challahs on our Shabbos tables.

Peach room friends hung up their challah covers and sprayed tie dye all over to create beautiful splatter art. Then they stamped the word "Shabbos" on them. 

While our friends were doing all of the steps for their Shabbos box preparation, Morahs were busy documenting each step of our friends work. Based on documentation, we are created a Shabbos book inspired by the book Is It Shabbos Yet? Asked Malkie. Our book looks fantastic, and we are happy to share them with you to treasure forever.

Shabbat Shalom

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya

 

Shabbos Box

Dear Parents.

This week in the Peach Room our friends began to explore concepts related to Shabbat. Morah Ora explained that after Hashem worked so hard to create our beautiful world he needed to rest on the seventh day. Shabbat is an important time to rest, pray, and spend time with our families and loved ones at the end of each week. We don't go to school or work. We might bathe and brush our hair and wear our nice dress clothes. A big feast is prepared. We light the candles and say a blessing called Kiddush over the grape juice and Challah bread. As a class we also read several storybooks including, '1,2,3 Shabbat", "Shalom Shabbat- A Book for Havdalah" and "My First Shabbat Board Book". 

Our friends worked on making their own Shabbos candle holders. We squeezed tea light candles inside air dry clay to make the shape of a candle. Then our friends decorated the candle holder with gems.

 

Another Shabbos project that we did was painting Kiddush cups with acrylic paint.

Next week we will continue learning about Shabbos and making our very own Shabbos challah covers.

Shabbot Shalom,

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya

Welcome back! Welcoming Marlowe to our Peach Room!

Dear Peach Room Parents!

Welcome back; we hope you enjoyed some time off with your families! Our peaches were so happy to be back together, and we started off our week with lots of very sweet hugs hello!

After being away for just over a week, our friends eased back into their school routine smoothly. We kept our focus on interactions and gentle reminders to help support them through this.

This week we are welcoming a new boy to our class: Marlowe .

Our friends were so happy to play with him and walk him around the classroom to show him all of the fun areas and toys to play with. They even helped him to get familiar with our daily routine. At circle time the children wanted to share their music instruments with him. They made him to feel so comfortable around new friends!

 

We returned many times to drawing with markers this week. 

When we paint, scrabble, or draw we are learning:

To develop our imagination.

Fine motor skills to hold the brush or marker.

The names of colors and how to make new ones.

To identify and create different shapes.

To express our feelings and our ideas.

About symmetry and balance.

Avigail  reminded our friends that we draw on the paper not on the table or chairs :) Way to go Avigail! 

  

Shabbat Shalom!!

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya.