Beautiful Gratitude

We’ve had another wonderful week in the Green Room!

Here at CJP we are doing an incredible project.  We are doing a “gift exchange” of sorts with another Chabad school in Long Island.  We wanted to make our friends across the country something that is reflective of our lives here in the desert.  We decided to showcase the nature existing in our outdoor classroom.  We went outside to collect flowers and leaves that had fallen to the ground.  The bougainvillea plant right outside was perfect for this project!  We love how the beautiful pink leaves hold onto their pigment even after they fall from the tree.

Back in our classroom, we worked together to stick them onto contact paper.  We’re still working on this project, and we know how much our friends in Long Island will appreciate a piece of desert to display in their classroom.

We’ve been working on decorations for our CJP Thanksgiving Lunch next Wednesday, which we hope you’ll be able to attend.  We’ve been stringing beads onto pipe cleaners, which is great for our fine motor skills.  We’ve been having fun choosing our favorite colors and making patterns with them.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we’ve been talking a lot about gratitude and what it means to be grateful.  Morah Gitty and I have been telling the friends that anyone or anything that you love is something to be grateful for.  Here are some highlights of our conversations:

“I’m thankful for food.  I love Oswald and broccoli.” -Mason

“I’m thankful for shul and chips.  I love Eema.” -Gavi

“I love Shamos, the white and brown dog who’s super dirty.” -Alice

“I love the Minion playdough playset in the big box.” -Morgan

“I love to help dad clean up the leaves.” -Levi

“I love my phone, my lunchbox, Daddy and Mommy.” -Ava

“I’m thankful for Sippy, Collette, and Esme.  They’re my neighbors.” -Sarah

As for me, I’m so grateful to be here at CJP!  Today, as I was tucking one of our friends into bed for nap, they whispered: “I love you Morah Deena.”  Who could ask for more?

Have a great weekend, and Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Deena and Morah Gitty

Progress Makes Perfect

Thank you parents for taking time out of your busy schedules for our conferences. Preparing for these conferences helped me remember that I’m not only blessed with incredible students, but that each student comes with an amazing family as well.  It was easy to talk about how much I love each of our Green Room friends, and how proud I am of each student.  Morah Gitty and I love being the Green Room Morahs!

As I was compiling the page of pictures of each friend, I was amazed at how much our students have learned since August!  We all remember the wonderful story about Sarah helping Alice down the stumps in the beginning of the year.  Now, Alice confidently, and proudly, does it by herself.  I even see her taking new and exciting risks.  In the photo below we see Alice in the white shirt climbing on the side of the fence.  GO ALICE!!!   

Time to cook dinner?  Need the dishes washed?  Need someone to watch the baby?  Need the floor mopped?  On Tuesday morning Levi and Morgan were doing the cooking, Mason was washing the dishes, and Gavi was mopping the floor.  Simultaneously, Ava had her feet up and was reading a book!  A parent mentioned to me during conferences that they love how we encourage kids to be themselves in the Green Room. I love seeing our friends express themselves and their interests through Dramatic Play.

Our outdoor classroom has a working water pump!  Our friends are excited about adding water to our outdoor play and exploration!

The Green Room friends are showing a lot of interests in doing puzzles. We have a great puzzle in our class that looks like two hands, and each finger has a clue about where it should be placed, based on the number of items pictured. Working on puzzles uses both the creative and mathematical sections of the brain. Check out this photo of Alice, Sarah, and Ava working so hard!

Is there anything more exciting than a birthday?!  I LOVE that we get to make cakes so each child feels important on their special day.  Having students involved in making cakes is a great way to incorporate small math and chemistry lessons.

Happy Birthday Ava!!!

Have a wonderful weekend, and Shabbat Shalom!
-Morah Deena and Morah Gitty

Letter Detectives

As I started to talk about in last week’s newsletter, the Green Room friends are very excited about the English alphabet.  So that you are familiar with my technique of teaching the alphabet to 3-year-olds, I want to explain that at this age, I focus on teaching the recognition of capital letters, along with the sound that each letter makes.  Once a student can properly identify all of the capital letters, and has a general understanding of letter sounds, then I begin introducing lowercase letters.  Of course our students are still exposed to lowercase letters, especially in books, but our focus in the Green Room for now is on the capital letters.

Since our Green Room friends love to spell their names, I made everyone a large name tag which they got to tape up wherever they wanted!

With each letter provocation we did, friends were encouraged to bring letters up to their name, and find the match!  Here we see friends doing just that!

Excavating Letters

Our letters were hiding under flour!  Students used brushes to “excavate” the letters.  I love how excited they got when they found letters that are used in their name!  Sensory exploration is an important part of development at this age.  It made me happy that all of our Green Room friends embraced touching the flour!

Letters ROCK!

Students were provided with letter cards, cork letters, and rocks to explore.  We incorporated math into this activity as well, counting how many rocks it took to cover each letter. This activity also honed our fine motor skills, as we used tweezers to pick up the rocks!

Did you see the video of our “Literacy-Lovie” parade on Wednesday?  (It was posted in the Facebook group by Morah Gitty).  We’re getting very familiar with the sound that each letter makes with activities like this one!

On Thursday we put out magnifying glasses to further explore our letters.  

Do you remember the first time you looked through a magnifying glass?  It was so cool to watch our friends explore different ways to use the magnifying glasses!

As of press time, we hadn't yet dug through our Jello mold to find our favorite letters, so please keep an eye on the Facebook page to see photos of that!

These temperatures in the 80's feels like fall for us! We've loved being able to spend more time outside now that it's getting "cooler."

It has been a busy and FUN week in the Green Room! We're excited to continue exploring the alphabet, playing, and learning together! Shabbat Shalom!

-Morah Deena and Morah Gitty