Building Blocks

This week, the children were very engaged in the block area. Vella and Nosson were busy building their castle, while Ben and Shimmy worked on their airport construction. In addition, Shira, Hailey, and Tamar happily built up their Elsa and Anna palace, while Nechama created an elaborate farm for her animals. It was amazing to see the different groups of children work together as they executed their plan and vision for their block creations. While most of the children chose to build with just the blocks by themselves, Nechama had a unique and interesting idea as to how to feed her animals. She gathered all of the acorns and walnuts from the “loose parts/nature table” and carefully placed one in front of each animal. As Nechama fed her animals, Vella became very interested in her work and asked if she could join in. Nechama replied, “Yes! I’m the farmer and you can be the helper.” After all of the animals were fed, Nechama and Vella walked over to the instrument basket and then began playing their instruments softly. 

The morahs asked, “Can you tell us about your work on the farm?” 

Nechama replied, “shhh…..we are singing them a lullaby.” 

Vella added, “It’s time for them to sleep.” 

Soon, their lullaby quickly turned into a davening song, which inspired Vella to retrieve our name basket. (During our Davening time, we draw names out of a basket to see who will sit next to each morah. This method was intended to help make the process fair, since all of the children wanted a turn to sit next to a morah. So far it has been working great!)

It was interesting to see how the children responded to this new method during their imaginative play with the blocks. Vella and Nechama began drawing names from the basket, to see who would be sitting next to each animal. 

Vella – “ok Shimmy, you sit next to the giraffe….and Shira, you sit next to the lion.”

Nechama – “ok Tamar….you sit next to the elephant…..and Ben, you sit next to the hippo.”

They proceeded by placing each friends name next to that particular animal and then continued playing the role of morah for their animals on the farm.

Throughout the week, we noticed the children using the name basket more and more throughout their play. Shira and Nosson enjoyed playing morah as they created their own davening circle with their friends. The two children took turns picking names from the basket and decided who would sit next to each morah. Afterwards, they led us in a beautiful impromptu davening circle, singing their favorite songs and playing their instruments proudly. As morahs, it fills our hearts with joy to see how much they enjoy davening and how well they daven together, without the assistance of a morah.

Please look at our Facebook Group to see pictures from the week. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Megan and Morah Shoshana