Slime and Shabbos!

This week in the Green Room we made slime!  Everyone enjoyed mixing the ingredients and choosing colors and glitter to decorate it.  Vella especially loved adding the water color to make the slime turn yellow.  She added more and more until it was the shade he wanted.  Ben and Shimmy especially loved stirring the slime and watching it get thicker and stickier!  Nosson and Shira put the slime on their face and pretended they were tatties with beards and mustaches.

We also practiced our math with pipe cleaners and noodles by stacking noodles and then counting them.  We asked the friends which pipe cleaner had more noodles and which had less.  They understood that the higher stack of noodles was more and the smaller stack was less.  We proved this by counting and saying "five is greater than three" and "three is less than five".

In dance class we enjoyed teaching Mr. Sam our new verses to the "Hello" song.  We taught him that Shalom means hello in Hebrew and Howdy means hello in Texas!  

In dramatic play the kids continued to explore the themes of Shabbat.  Ben and Shimmy made kiddush and Nechama and Shira lit Shabbos candles.

We also made 3D paint this week which was super fun!  Ben noticed that when he mixed yellow and blue it turned to green.  He said "I'm making green paint!"

Shimmy used all the colors and made a beautiful rainbow.

This week we learned all about the parsha.  Please ask the following questions to your children at the Shabbos table:

1. What is the name of this week's parsha? (Vaeira)

2. Where does the parsha take place? (Mitzrayim/Egypt)

3. The Jews were slaves in Mitzrayim, what did Moshe and Aaron say to Pharaoh? (Let my people go!)

4. What did Aaron's stick turn into? (A snake)

5. What did the snake do? (Ate up all the Egyptian's snakes!)

6. When Pharaoh wouldn't let the Jews go free what did Hashem send to Mitzrayim? (10 makos)

Name as many of the 10 makos as you can with your children.  They will tell you all about the water that turned to blood and the nasty boils that appeared on their skin.  Tamar was especially enthusiastic about the boils on their hands and she said "they had booboos on their hands!!!!!!"  We discussed the concept of slavery very briefly and talked about how lucky we are to be free.  Ben said "I am free. I am free and a half."  Nosson told his friends that all the bad people from this parsha were killed on Pesach!

We look forward to seeing you at our school's Shabbos dinner!  Our class made delicious carrot cake muffins that we hope you enjoy!

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah D and Morah Shoshana

Shabbox

This week in the Green Room we are working on our Shabbat boxes.  We tie-dyed cloths for challah covers and decorated kiddush cups in glitter.  We all cooked a delicious chicken soup that you can buy at our Shabbat store fundraiser.  In music class on Wednesday the friends made a snake gobble up Morah Shoshana and Morah Jacqueline.  It was so funny and everyone had fun being a little scared.  When we discussed the parsha we talked about how Miriam had the nickname Puah because of the noises she made to the babies "pu-pu-pu".  We then had a conversation about everyone's nicknames.  Nosson said that his nickname is Chaim.  Vella said that her nickname is Batya.  Nechama said her nickname is Chamie.  We pointed out that Shimmy and Ben are nicknames for Shimon and Benjamin and that D is also a nickname for Deanna.  Tamar said that she doesn't have a nickname.  Shira said that her nicknames are Chaya Mushka and Chaim Sheli.  Please join us next Shabbos for a wonderful Preschool Shabbat dinner on Friday night and don't forget to buy delicious food cooked by all of our friends today at the Shabbos store.

Ben tye-dying his challah cover.

The Green Room cutting vegetables for our Shabbos chickens soup.

The Green Room painting their kiddush cups.

Friends making the big snake eat Morah Shoshana and Morah Jacqueline.

The snake is eating Nosson!

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah D and Morah Shoshana

A is for Arms!

This week has been filled with exciting alphabet lessons.  We learned a brand new song to help learn the alphabet.  The first line is "A is for arms, I am strong!"  You can see if your child can sing the rest to you.  We also worked very hard on the alphabet train puzzle.  Each friend had a different letter and when we got to that letter they had to say if they had it in their hand, they then placed in in it's spot in the puzzle.  We hung the puzzle in the room so we can practice with it every day.  We also continued with our Shabbos lesson and began making our Shabbos boxes.  We decorated candlesticks with nail polish and began painting our boxes.

The friends put together the alphabet puzzle promoting literacy and teamwork.

The friends painting their Shabbos boxes.

To promote the development of fine motor skills and problem solving we played the game Jenga. The friends loved being so careful pushing and pulling the blocks and making sure the tower didn't fall.  Of course when it fell everyone laughed and cheered.  They were able to grasp that if a block is loose it will come out easily and if it is tight it will be harder to take out and could cause the tower to fall down.  All the friends got better and better at the game each round.  The game also taught turn-taking.

Nechama balancing a Jenga block on top of the tower.

The friends loved playing doctor outside and the Rainbow Room loaned us their doctor and nurse costumes.  Each friend took turns being the doctor and giving each other check-ups.  The turn-taking and sharing of costumes taught self-regulation and it was so fun having the whole class play together.  Morah D and Morah Shoshana were both given check-ups too.

Ben about to give Morah Shoshana a shot and his nurse Shira is helping facilitate.

Morah Shoshana crying because her shot by Dr. Vella hurt!

We had a new music and movement class this week with Mr. Sam.  We learned new songs and also sang some songs we already knew.  It was so fun and we can't wait until next week when he comes back again.

We are so happy to have our friend Tamar back from Israel.  We missed her so much.  We also wished Vella a safe trip to Memphis and we will miss her until she is back next week!  The friends decided to give Vella a silly farewell by lifting her on a chair and singing Simon Tov U'Mazal Tov!

Tamar making her Shabbos candlestick on her first day back in school!

Celebrating Vella's simcha!

Parsha

This week's parsha is Vayechi.  Yaakov passes away in Egypt and he instructs Yosef to bury him in Eretz Yisroel.   Yaakov also blesses his sons before he passes away.  Yosef dies at the age of 110 and he is buried in Egypt but he asks that his bones be taken to Eretz Yisroel which will eventually happen during the exodus from Egypt.

Tire race!

Ben and Shimmy being creative with Magnatiles.

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah D and Morah Shoshana

Shabbos, Shabbos, Shabbos!

This week in the Green Room we began our Shabbos unit.  We will be learning exclusively about Shabbos for the next three weeks, culminating in a preschool Shabbos dinner!  We have been having discussions all week about the different things we do on Shabbos and how Shabbos makes us feel.  We've also read many different Shabbos books and we will be creating a Shabbos box with materials we can use at home such as a candlestick, kiddush cup, and challah cover.

When we asked the children how they feel when they hear "Shabbos is coming" the friends said the following things:
Vella: "excited and because my sisters are going to catch me and play games"
Nechama: "eat something"
Ben: "eat challah and kiddush"
Nosson: "shul and everything. I love Shabbos."
Shimmy: "my kiddush and make challah and open my present"
Shira: "I want Dahlia to play with me and sleep with me the whole night."

We read the book "Fishy Friday" and the friends made connections to real life!  They recalled when they've gone fishing.  Shira said she went fishing in the zoo and park.  Ben said he caught a fish in the bath.  Shimmy agreed that he too caught a fish in the bath.  Nosson said he has never been fishing but when he goes for the first time he will catch a big crocodile!

When asked what your Mom does to get ready for Shabbos the friends answered the following:
Nosson: "my mom makes challah...makes a big challah"
Nechama: "makes challah and candles"
Ben: "we have bagels and eat dinner and kiddush"
Shimmy: "make challah, light candles, and Papa make kiddush"
Vella: "my mommy make challah and food and candles and I make snakes"
Shira: "she dress up"

When asked what your Aba does on Shabbos they answered the following:
Nechama: "put grape juice out"
Ben: "make kiddush and make challah and eat dinner"
Shimmy: "make kiddush"
Vella: "take out kiddush"
Shira: "I don't want to tell you...okay make kiddush"
Nosson: "he makes challah and he do kiddush and I do kiddush"

The friends had so much fun this week making zoos out of magnatiles and blocks and putting the animals inside.  It's so wonderful when the whole class works together on these projects and everyone has something valuable to add.  This teaches lessons about teamwork and develops everyone's imaginations!  It also teaches self-regulation through sharing and listening to other's ideas.

Nechama, Nosson, and Shira working on their zoo.

Vella working on a section of the zoo that they then added to the final product.

Shimmy joins in on creating the zoo.

Nosson and Shira work on the block zoo on the carpet.

This week we learned how to do wheelbarrow races.  Everyone had so much fun lifting each other's legs and trying to balance while running.  We also counted how many steps it takes to get around the log circle on the playground.  Then we said the ABCs as we walked around the circle.  These activities are not only great for physical fitness and gross-motor development but the log game promoted literacy and math as well.

Counting how many steps it takes to get around the log circle.

Shira and Nechama race Shimmy and Ben in a wheelbarrow race.

Shira and Nechama practice their wheelbarrow skills.

In Parsha this week we caught up on the past few parshas that we missed over break and we talked about this weeks parsha as well.  We reviewed that Yosef got a coat from his father and it was full of colors.  His brothers were jealous of his coat so Yosef left to Egypt.  While he was in Egypt he interpreted the dreams of the king and he became a very high officer.  His brothers came to look for him and say sorry for being jealous.  They didn't even recognize him since it had been so long and they didn't know if he was even alive!  You can ask your children the following questions at the Shabbos table this week:

1. What is the name of the parsha? (Vayigash)
2. How did Yosef's brothers tell their father Yaakov that Yosef was still alive? (played a song)
3.  What instrument did they play the song on? (a harp)
4. What did the family do now that they were all back together again? (have a big reunion!)

Shabbat Shalom,
Morah D and Morah Shoshana