Aleph Beis Tree

  

 In the Green Room this week we focused on the letters Aleph through Vav.  Each child took turns identifying the letters and then hanging them on the tree.  We will continue practicing these letters and next week we will add more.  By the end of the year we hope that everyone will know each letter 

    .of the Aleph-Beis and be able to identify them easily

.Nechama hangs a letter on the tree.

The Aleph-Beis tree promotes literacy and memory!
We made playdough this week too.  Tamar chose the color purple so we mixed blue paint and red paint together to make purple paint.  Everyone enjoyed measuring the ingredients and mixing it together.  This activity incorporated math through measuring and also sensory-motor development through kneading, pulling, and mixing.


We have begun a new workout routine created by our friends.  In the morning we will be going outside to exercise and do team-building activities.  We started with stretches led by Morah Shoshana.  Then we wiggled our whole body to loosen up and prepare for the exercise routine.  Morah D led the class in jumping jacks.  Our friends did five jumping jacks which helps develop coordination.  Then we went on to do an activity developed by Ben.  We sat in a circle and rolled the ball to one another.  We had to practice calling out a friends name before rolling the ball to them.  This helped everyone learn how to get someone's attention and prepare them for receiving the ball.  They demonstrated such good teamwork by including each person equally.  Then, we did bicycles which was Nosson's idea.  We put our feet together and bicycled our legs.  Everyone cracked up when the morahs did this activity.  I guess it looked pretty silly!  Vella's idea was to jump up and down while singing the Aleph-Beis.  This was a great exercise for our bodies and our brains!  Last, we played duck-duck-goose where everyone made sure their friends got a turn!

 
We have begun our Purim unit.  This week we read Purim books, learned the story of Purim, and made graggers to shake in Shul when we hear the name Haman (boo).  Inside our graggers are Purim pictures so in Shul while we need to stay quiet we can look for the pictures inside the gragger and we won't get bored during the Megillah reading.
    
Next week we will continue our Purim unit and Aleph-Beis tree.

Good Shabbos,
Morah D and Morah Shoshana

Happy Birthday Nechama!

This week in the Green Room we baked a delicious cake for Nechama's birthday celebration.  Everyone loved mixing all the ingredients together and then seeing what the cake looked like after it came out of the oven.  We enjoyed it together while celebrating Nechama.  She shared pictures of herself as a baby and everyone said "awww" to her baby photos.  We also danced with purple glow sticks and sang Happy Birthday in English and Hebrew.  Our friends are become very bilingual!  In our Hello song that we sing every morning we have learned to say Bonjour which is French, Ciao which is Italian, and Ni Hao which is Chinese!


Our friends stir the batter for the cake.

Vella adds the oil and stirs it up!

Ben and Shimmy find amazing treasures in the archaeological dig site outside.  They found a piece of clay and also an unfamiliar leaf.


Our friends eat cake and celebrate Nechama's birthday.

We have begun working on Aleph-Beis on a daily basis.  Everyone has enjoyed matching the Hebrew letters on popsicle sticks to Hebrew letters on boxes.  They then stick the popsicle stick into the corresponding hole on the box.  This develops fine-motor skills and Hebrew literacy.  In addition, we printed their names in Hebrew and glued the first couple letters to one box and the last letter or two to the second box.  They then practice finding the beginning of their name and end of their name and matching the boxes together.  We use the boxes as stools and drums during davening and circle time.

Shimmy and Ben play their drums.

Vella finds her Hebrew name "Batya" and matches the boxes to make her full name.

Thank you to Morah Ora for bringing her slide and ball pit.  We were able to enjoy this outside and took turns sliding into the balls.  It was so much fun!
  

We had very interesting conversations this week.  Nosson said, "I have a color in my sandwich, can you guess what it is?  I'll give you a hint.  Ye-llow."  Ben said, "Hey, I know, it's lellow!" Then Nosson said, "See, my hint helped!"  Our friends are so silly and creative!

Shabbat Shalom,
Morah D and Morah Shoshana

Nature Walk and Family Tree

This week in the Green Room we had a nature walk.  Everyone picked branches and leaves and then we created a beautiful classroom family tree!

Nosson tries to pull a big branch off the tree to use on his family tree project.  He is so strong!

Ben found an awesome branch that he then taped his friends pictures on for his project.

Nechama collects branches and flowers for her family tree.

On Wednesday we began a new Sports class!  We had an great time throwing "frosty balls" through the hoola hoop and also running under the parachute.  We got to team up with the Rainbow Room and it was a blast having this activity together and bonding with their class.

Vella has great hand-eye coordination as you can see, she makes a perfect basket!

Shimmy stretches to warm up for sports.

Shira shows off her beautiful ballet moves during the balancing practice in Sports class.

Nosson, Ben, and Vella get ready to shoot the "frosty balls" into the air during parachute play.

Stretching to warm up during Sports class.

On Wednesday we also had a special party to welcome Tamar back from Israel.  It has been a few weeks since she's been back but all our friends decided they wanted to do something to make her feel special and show her that we are so happy she is back from her trip!  Everyone dressed up in their finest clothes and costumes, we made "banana boats" with fruit and sunflower butter and enjoyed a delicious and healthy chocolate cake that Tamar's Mom made.  Thank you!  We had a blast dancing too!
 

This week was Yud Shvat and we discussed why this is such a special day in Chabad history.  We talked about the Rebbe and we listened to some Chabad niggunim as well!  Nosson explained that he wore a white shirt because it was a special day!

Parsha Questions:
1. What is the name of this week's parsha? (Beshalach)
2. What miracle did Hashem make at the Yam Suf? (He had Moshe split the sea so the Jews could walk through)
3. What happened when the Egyptians chased the Jews into the Yam Suf? (Hashem made the sea close in on them so the Jews were still safe!)
4. What special food fell from the heavens while the Jews were in the desert? (Mon)
5. How did Hashem give the Jews water in the desert? (Moshe hit a rock with a stick and the water flowed out)

We explained that the mon was able to taste like whatever they wanted!!  So we asked our friends what they would have their mon taste like.  Here are their answers:
Nosson: rainbow ice cream
Ben: sunscreen
Shimmy: cookies
Nechama: spaghetti
Shira: spaghetti
Tamar: cookies
Vella: cake

The Green Room wishes you a restful and peaceful Shabbos.

Morah D and Morah Shoshana

Painting and Mitzvas

This week in the Green Room we did a lot of painting!  We painted with feathers and we created more 3D paint to share with our friends.


Everyone really enjoyed creating 3D paint and we made observations about the different colors we were creating.  Shimmy said "mine is brown like Ben's eyes!" and Ben said, "ya, brown like mine eyes!"  Nechama said "mine is a pink smoothie".  Nosson said, "mine is turning blue".  Vella looked over at Nosson's paint and said "oh man, it's blue!"  Tamar mixed red and blue together to create a new color.  She said, "look at, mine is turning purple, it's beautiful....purple light!"  The paint was very foamy because of the shaving cream.  Shira said, "I'm popping all the bubbles out!" After we made the paint we took it outside to share with the other children at school.  We painted a huge mural on our fence!


This week we did a fun science experiment.  We made a volcano!  First, everyone gathered dirt and mixed it with water to create the volcano around our water jug.  Then, Morah D put baking soda and vinegar in the hole of the water jug and we all watched excitedly as the volcano erupted!

   
This was Mr. Sam's last week doing music and movement with us.  He brought small drums so that everyone could try it out and he even let the morahs  use his big drum.  We sang our favorite Hello Song and taught Mr. Sam the verse we added this week.  We learned privet which is a greeting in Russian.  Next week we will learn Bonjour, which is French!
  
Ben enjoyed the Hokey Pokey and putting his egg shaker on his nose!

We had so much fun doing a "boot camp" obstacle course skipping through tires and doing jumping jacks.  It was great exercise, good gross motor development, and a way to get all our energy out right before rest time.
  

Mitzvah of the Week: Nosson noticed that Mina was struggling with her jacket.  He came right over to help her and said, "I am strong so I can help you".  Way to go Nosson!


Parsha Questions:
1. What is this week's parsha? (Bo)
2. The Jews were still slaves in Egypt but Pharaoh wouldn't let them go.  What was the 8th plague that Hashem brought?  (Locusts)
3. How many locusts were there? (Millions!)
4. Pharaoh still didn't let the Jews free so which plague did Hashem bring next? (Darkness)
5. The tenth and final plague that Hashem brought was what? (First born sons got sick)
6. Hashem didn't want the Jewish first born sons to get sick so he told all the Jews to do what? (Put blood around their door)
7. Finally, after all ten plagues, what did Pharaoh do? (Let the Jews go free)

Shabbat Shalom,
Morah D and Morah Shoshana