Shabbat Concepts and Shabbat Box

Dear Families,

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.

Dramatic Play    

Our friends worked together to set up for Shabbat. After they were done we all took turns pretending to light the Shabbat candles, pour the grape juice in cups, and "cut" the Challah. On Shabbat we eat with our friends and family as we enjoy each other's company.

Sensory Table Activity

Our table was filled with water and washing cups, and we had fun practicing pouring the water from cup to cup and over our hands. We said the bracha, natilat yadaem, which all our friends remember from circle time!

Math

This week week our friends practiced counting candles and kiddush cups. Some of our friends could count up to 15!

Shabbat Box

Our friends painted Shabbat boxes, and as they were working we noticed their preferences for both specific tools and color. Liran preferred green to all the other colors and covered her entire box with paint. Etai liked brown and only painted a small part of his box before deciding he was finished. Aria enjoyed experimenting with the texture of the paint on her skin and watched the colors change when she mixed them. Alma chose her favorite color, blue, and used the paint roller to apply the paint onto her  box. Leeann, Asher, and Audrey had so much fun of mixing all the colors and asked morah for more colors. Lief and Kai enjoyed using roller brushes to roll the paint on the box. We had such fun with all the different colored paint!

In the next  couple of weeks we will continue learning in depth about Shabbat and making special projects to put inside our Shabbat boxes.

This week we added a new song to our Shabbat songs - “Days of the Week”
 

Yom Rishon, Avoda
Yom Sheini, Avoda
Yom Shlishi, Avoda avoda
Yom Riviee, Avoda
Yom Chamishi, Avoda
Yom Shishi, Avoda Avoda
Yom Shabbat Menucha
Yom Shabbat Menucha
Yom Shabbat Menucha Menucha

On Sunday we work work work
On Monday we work work work
On Tuesday we work work work, work work work

On Wednesday we work work work
On Thursday we work work work

On Friday we work work work, work work work

On Shabbat we all rest 
On Shabbat we all rest
On Shabbat we all rest, rest rest rest.

Shabbat Shalom

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky

 Dear Peach Families,

We cannot thank you enough for your flexibility and adaptations this week. Our challenging times asks a lot of us all, and we are so grateful for your help in keeping your children home when possible and joining us via Zoom so that your children could continue to be engaged in their enriching, CJP lives. There truly might be nothing cuter than a class full of toddlers on a Zoom call! Thank you again, for joining us to sing, daven, and give tzedakah together. 

Our friends who were at school this week enjoyed their time with Morah Rivky. We planted a school garden, created artwork together, and spoke to each other more than ever! 

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky

 Dear Families,

This week we continued incorporating Tu B'Shvat into our lessons. We spent a lot of time matching pictures of fruits and vegetables to a chart with the same images. We focused on naming each fruit and connecting the word to the picture. Many children were familiar and repeated the words back. Liran identified that lemon is sour and Asher mentioned that "Mommy cuts it." Leeann said that she likes bananas.

We played with soil in our science table and practiced digging, shoveling and filling up flower pots. On Monday, Morah added grass seeds and we were so excited to see grass growing by Wednesday! We kept checking up on our peas which starting budding! We will send them home next week and ask that you please water them and let your child taste the peas when they grow. Please send us a picture too! They should grow very quickly. :) 

Each friend got a fresh flower to dip into paint and stamp on a canvas. Everyone enjoyed watching the flower shape transfer onto the canvas and explored color mixing. We put the artwork on display for the Grandparents Zoom Tu B'Shvat party!  You can choose to give it to a grandparent if you wish.

Happy Tu B’Shvat and Shabbat Shalom

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky

Welcome back and Tu B’Shevat

Dear Families,

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 two weeks our friends eased back into their school routine smoothly. We kept our focus on interactions and gentle reminders to help support them through this.

A highlight of this week was that our friends began exploring Tu B'Shvat (the new year for the trees) We started our week playing in the kitchen area, which we loved! In the the kitchen area we had pretend fruits and vegetables. Our friends used their sorting skills to sort the fruits from the vegetables. We spoke about which fruits grow from the ground, and then practiced saying the Brochos!

   We say the bracha, Ha'adama for the fruits and vegetables that grow from the ground.

   We say the bracha, Pri haetz for the fruits that grow on the trees.

In the sensory table this week,  we had soil, plants, seeds, and pots. Were practiced our planting skills. As we did this, we talked about all of the things that plants and trees need to grow healthy: soil, water and sunlight to make their own food.

Next week we are going to plants our own pots to see how beans or seeds grow into something big.

At the table, we had clay, play dough and branches set out for our friends to sculpt their own trees. Playing and molding clay can be extremely therapeutic for a child who needs to physically express their emotions. In addition, their fingers are working to strengthen their fine motor skills and dexterity while their brain is working on their imagination and creativity.

With welcoming friends back to school, we had Liran's Birthday party and welcomed our new friend, Etai, to our peach room class. We  baked a cake together to celebrate Liran's birthday! We took turns pouring ingredients and mixing, and of course tasting it! 

Next week we will continue exploring Tu B’Shvat and watch our seeds grow . 

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky.

Winter and Arctic Animals

Dear Families,

This week we continued exploring concepts of winter.

Learning Through Books

We read more books about winter and snowflakes. Our favorite book was Three Little Kittens by Paul Galdone. Not only did the morahs read this book to our friends,  we heard the audio version as well. Our friends were so focused and quite while listening the story.

         

Early Literacy Activity

Our friends were greeted with a set table of gloves and mittens alongside blue and white paints.They eagerly tried on the gloves working hard to fit their tiny fingers into them.

Then, they slowly dipped their gloves in the paint and stamped it on the paper. The slow stamping turned into fast moving hands on the paper as they mixed the colors and felt the cold paint seep through the glove creating a wonderful sensory exploration.

Arctic Animals Exploration

In the sensory bin this week we had arctic animals with snow, which we made from baking soda mixed with hair conditioner and ice. It was freezing cold!

 

We spoke about animals that live in the cold weather.

These animals stay warm because they have fur, and as humans we need hats, scarves and mittens to be warm when we go outside.

 

When we came back to school the next day, we opened our sensory table and we realized that our ice and snow had melted down. "Ohhhh noooo," we said. We took out a bin and started to rescue the animals from the water. Our friends had so much fun playing with the animals and rescuing them. 

Shabbat Shalom 

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky

 

We wish you a restful winter break, and we will see you soon! 

 

      

Winter is Fun!

Dear Families,

This week we explored winter in our classroom.

 It was so cold that it was snowing!

Our friends had their hats, scarves, and mittens on.

We practiced how to put our mittens on and off and match them by colors.

It’s Snowing!

Our friends played and touched different textures of snow (pretend snow).

Around the classroom we had snow made from pillow stuffing. Our friends  had fun running around the classroom and throwing snow up and watching it fall to the floor.

When we were done playing we took shovels and shoveled all the pretend snow into the bins.

In the sensory table we had crushed ice as a snow.

Our friends put their gloves on and were ready to build a snow man.

Some friends tasted the ice and said, "It's ice cream!"

The vocabulary words we used this week were:

Fluffy, cold, snow, and winter.

Art Exploration: Can You Make a Snowflake?

We used q-tips to create our own snowflake shapes. Liran, Leeann and Alma were focusing while they were using the q-tips. They didn’t even get their hands messy with paint! Aria, Asher, Audrey and Leif chose to use their hands to create hand print snowflakes.

Next week we will explore more about winter and have more frosty fun! 

Shabbat Shalom 

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky

Chanukah Exploration

Dear Parents

This week we explored Chanukah through storybooks. The words and concepts we are working on with our friends are Chanukah, Menorah and Dreidel. Leeann and Liran said, "Menorah" and Asher said, "Chanukah" very clearly. We are noticing many exciting language developments in all of the children.

We  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.

Our explorations continued with olives and olive oil. Our friends have been smashing olives to make oil as well as tasting them. Some of our friends likes olives, some do not, and some even said "More please!"

Happy Chanukah & Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Ora & Morah Rivky