Happy Passover

Dear Parents.

We wrapped up our Pesach exploration by finishing our pillows. We filled our pillows with pillow stuffing and while we were filling our pillows some friends noticed and said “its soft”

During Pesach, when we drink wine (or grape juice) we recline in our chair against a cushion. This is to remember that Jewish people are no longer slaves in Egypt and are free to relax and enjoy the goodness of life.

This week we had matzah factory with Rabbi Deitsch, and we made our own matzah! We mixed the water with flour then we rolled the dough to make it thin and, after that, we used forks to make small holes. It was delicious and crunchy.

We are also become  familiar with the Seder plate Our friends matched pictures on the plate to  learn about the food we eat during Seder nights .

Dear Families Chag Pesach Sameah and 

Shabbot Shalom !!

 

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya

Pesach Project & Matzah Bakery

Dear Parents!

We continued our exploration of Pesach with another action packed week. Our friends are creating their own pillows for Pesach. They started this project by painting the fabric using brushes, then painting their hands to make prints, and finally just painting with their hands as they explored the tools, texture and colors. Next week they will finish by stuffing their pillows. 

Another highlight this week was making homemade matzah. Each friend poured water onto their tray of flour, mixing it together to create dough. Some friends enjoyed the sticky texture while mixing the ingredients with their hands. Other friends did not, so they opted to use a fork or a spoon. Once their dough was ready, they rolled it into a ball and patted it. Then they took turns using our rolling pin to get it nice and thin. 

The morahs helped them move their matzah dough to our baking paddles, and they each got a turn to put it into our matzah "oven". We counted to five in English and then in Hebrew and the matzah was magically baked for them to taste! Most friends seemed to enjoy their matzah though they did ask for water. 

We had an impromptu snack in our dramatic play kitchen complete with kiddush cups. One friend did not care for his matzah at all, saying, "Yucky!" and tried to scrape it off his tongue. He went to get a drink of water to wash it down. It's always interesting to see their reactions to trying things. All of our friends enjoyed the process and worked hard on this project.

Friends are continuing to explore the concept of constructing pyramids in two areas of our room: our sensory table with wet sand and trays/containers for brick making and also our block area with duplos and cardboard builders. They loved building duplo pyramids and then knocking them down over and over!

We are noticing more and more how the friendships have developed within our class. It is truly incredible to watch as they greet one another and us each morning, especially after an absence. They notice and ask about friends who are not at school. They help each other with simple tasks. They love to dance and play together. They are quite simply amazing little people!

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Ora, & Morah Chaya.

Pesach .

Dear Peach Room Parents 

This week we began exploring the holiday of Pesach. We worked on cleaning our room and talked about the importance of cleaning away all of the Chametz or bread and breadcrumbs and other foods with yeast in preparation for Pesach. Our friends swept floors, scrubbed tables, and washed all the dishes in the classroom with sponges. 

We were busy building pyramids with different materials. In the sensory bin we mixed sand and water and added ice cube trays to make bricks. At the table top we had paper shaped in pyramids and we used marble pieces and magna tiles to build too.  Our friends chose to build the pyramids in different directions like stacking marble pieces, using plastic cups or sorting the magna tiles by colors..

We talked about how Pharaoh promised the Jews presents if they came to Egypt to help him build the pyramids. But he was mean and didn’t keep his promise. So they worked so hard and were not treated well. Hashem punished Pharaoh and the people of Egypt by sending plagues- frogs, bugs, sicknesses and the brave Moshe stood up to Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go!” The Jewish people were finally able to leave Egypt! While they traveled through the desert they did not have time to use yeast and wait for their bread to rise and so matzah was created from flour and water and it baked on their backs as they were traveling out of Egypt. 

In the dramatic play area we opened a matzah bakery and all of our friends have been enjoying taking turns making matzah in our special matzah oven. Our friends have enjoyed listening to music and reading books about the story of Pesach this week as well. 

We will continue learning about Pesach  next week . 

Another fun activity this week was getting a big box in our peach classroom.

We got a new book last week in honor of Avigail's birthday. The title of the book is Not Just a Box

Our friends could not stop looking at the pictures of the book and asking the morahs to read it to them.

Morah Ora brought a huge box to the classroom, and our friends started imagining different things about this box.

Ari took a shopping cart and pretended  he is going to the store.

Avigail said I'm going to sit inside the pyramid .

 Oz, Mika, Daria , Yosef, and Ariel were giggling loudly inside the box. They pretended like our box was a big house with doors. They would go in and out the box while closing and opening the "doors."

This book tells us that we do not only have to see a regular box .We can use our imagination and create lots of things with a box .  

We want to give a big thank you to Morah Shternie Dietsch for donating not just a box ! 

Shabbat Shalom!

 Morah Ora & Morah Chaya

Birthdays, Shapes, and Colors.

Dear Parents,

 

This week we had two birthday parties in our classroom: Avigail’s and Ariel’s.

Peach room friends made a birthday cake from scratch. They had lots of fun making the cake. Our friends took turns measuring all the  ingredients and checking eggs to see if their ok to be used. We sang them a Happy Birthday song in English and in Hebrew and gave extra Tzedakah. They laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. We even had Avigail’s brother join us for the birthday party!

We want to wish them a Happy birthday once again!!!!

This week we went over learning about shapes and colors .

Our friends matched plastic balls by colors and we used puzzles to name each color that  we saw.

 

The children explore colors, identify objects and build fine motor skills with our self- correcting puzzle boards!

Next week we are starting Pesach, and we cant wait. We are so excited!

Morahs are preparing so many fun activities for our friends to learn and explore about Pesach.

Shabbat Shalom 

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya

Purim Celebration

Dear Parents,

This week was filled with fun Purim activities.

Throughout this week we have been dancing and singing to Purim songs.

We had a blast doing Spirit Week for Purim.

On Monday our friends came in crazy socks. 

Each friend showed off their socks and had a big laugh.

On Tuesday our friends had Crazy Hair Day.

Some friends had so many pony tail that we counted to see who had the most!

On Wednesday we had Fancy Day, and all our friends looked so beautiful.

 

On Thursday our friends filled the box (mishloach manot) with lots of yummy things to exchange with each other, as we learned that it is an important mitzvah of Purim .

We wrapped up our Purim Spirit Week with Purim costumes and a Purim celebration!

We had a blast bouncing on our bounce house, doing face painting and lots of different games.

Thank you for helping your kids participate through this amazing week of spirit and sending mishloach manot baskets to us. We are so grateful for your involvement and generosity!

Its a pleasure to be your children's morahs.

Happy Purim and Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Ora, and Morah Chaya. 

 

Purim week 2

Dear Parents,
In the Peach Room we completed our second week of our Purim theme.

 

In dramatic play, Morah Ora created a castle and our friends painted walls of the castle with different colors and glitter.

 

In our sensory table this week we had loose parts and gift bags. Since last week we have been talking about the four mitzvos of Purim.  Last week we gave extra Tzedakah. This week we have been talking about the mitzvah of Shalach Manos, giving a gift basket to a friend.  Our friends filled the bags with a variety of loose parts, and they choose who they want to give them to. 

 

We learned a new song about Purim:

When we hear the name of Esther,

we clap our hands.
When we hear the name of Mordechai,

we say Hooray!!
When we hear the name of King Achashverosh

we turn around.
When we hear the name of Vashti

we wiggle.
When we hear the name of Haman

we stomp our feet.

 

We cannot wait for more Purim fun and celebration next week.

 

Shabbat Shalom 

Morah Ora & Morah Chaya.

Purim

Dear Parents!

What a fun week we had!

We began our exploration of Purim this week. We began by introducing the main characters of the Megillah: King Achashverosh, Queen Vashti, Haman, Queen Esther and Mordechai through finger puppets, dancing and storybooks. 

Sensory table.
Our friends explored rice, lentils and beans in our sensory table this week. Using funnels and bottles, they each created a gragger or noisemaker. They added some liquid water colors to the rice and some play rocks.We practiced shaking our graggers to make noise whenever they hear the name Haman and we said be nice Hamman!

 

Manipulative play 

 Morah hided wooden small  purim characters in the munipulativ boxes .

Each friend opened the box to find a purim character and named it .

We also glued   pomp pumps to decorate our crowns to be like 

King Achashverosh. 

During davening, we give tzedakah, but this week we talked about how this is one of the four mitzvos of Purim. We touched on the other three mitzvos: hearing the Megillah, sending food gifts to friends and hosting a festive meal. We will continue to explore more about Purim in the next couple of weeks.

Shabbot shallom 

Morah Ora,Morah Chaya.