A Birthday, A Wedding, and Chanukah!

We’ve had another fun and beautiful week in the Green Room!  

Happy Birthday, Gavi!  We had a wonderful time celebrating Gavi’s 4th birthday.  I love how our friends all pitch in with the baking, and seeing how much they appreciate being a part of the celebration.  I’ve started placing the empty cake boxes in our cupboards in Dramatic Play, and our friends often take them out to bake their own imaginary cakes.  Placing recognizable packaging in pretend play also serves as a tool for the site reading of recognizable print, which our friends have begun to do.  For example, your child likely knows that the Cheerios box says “Cheerios” on it, not because they can read, but because they recognize the symbols.  Later, when they learn that when C sits next to H, they make a “CH” sound, their brain will automatically cross reference this with the “CH” sound in “Cheerios.”  Are there food packages in your home that your child has begun to “read?”

Each friend is making their very own menorah for Chanukah!  Each child started with their own wooden picture frame.  We glued bits of chopped up crayons onto the wood.  It’s interesting to see that even when we start with the same materials, color preference and personal style is still reflected.  After the glue had dried we used a hair dryer to melt the wax onto the wood!  Thumbs up to Morgan, who does not like the sound of the hairdryer, but he was still brave enough to participate!  Our finished product will be coming home in time for the first night of Chanukah next week!

We’ve been practicing putting candles in our menorah, and on Thursday we practiced lighting the candles and singing the brachot.  Chanukah is a great time to practice math vocabulary with words such as “second,” “third,” “fourth,” etc.  We’re so excited for next week when Chanukah finally arrives!

Does your child talk about the books that we read at school?  This week we’ve had two favorites that I want to mention.  The first one is called I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Dreidel by Caryn Yacowitz.  This story is adorable!  Our Green Room friends understand that it’s imaginary, and they laugh out loud at the ridiculous story.  Another book that we’ve read this week is called Don’t Sneeze at the Wedding by Pamela Mayer.  The friends saw a lot of the set up for Morah Mirele’s wedding this week, and it was a great book to give a little explanation about what a wedding is, along with a fun story.

Morah Gitty and I wish you a wonderful and restful Shabbat and weekend.  Don’t forget to stay updated on all of the fun activities Chabad of the East Valley has planned during Chanukah!