Happy Friday Everyone,

This week has been a getting to know each other week.  The children are adjusting very well and have enjoyed showing me where things are in the class.  As you may have heard, I have been changing the environment around a bit to enable a little more room for different work around the classroom.  This will continue as I add more items here and there through my observations of the children.

The theme this week has been Antarctica, The Artic and the Aniamls that live in each area.  It's been cold here but of course not like in these cold places in the World. Today we did an experiment to see how penguins can stay in the frigid water and survive. Please ask about it and how long your child could keep their hand in the water!

The Dramatic Play area is a lot bigger and we have been seeing quite a few chefs in the kitchen.  We have been seeing a lot of cooperative play with a lot of discussion about the fruits and vegetables the children tried during our sensory tasting on the playground with all of our schoolmates. This next week we will turn the play area into a flower shop!

The Library area has been used this week for "meetings" which we enjoy listening to. It's wonderful to see a few of the children curled up on the couch reading a book.  Morah Devora has been asked by Tzipi, Zoe and Jemma to join them in reading a book.

Mason, Levi, Ava and Jemma have been working on their mathematical minds this week! :) I have sat with them playing a version of shut the box and they absolutely love counting the dice and turning the numbers over.  This game has encouraged the children to want to play it quite a few times and I'm asked to show them more numbers.

The block area was turned into a floating iceberg with some brown land surrounding it. Jemma and Hammond enjoyed the Polar bears cave and we had many friends watching all the fun they were coming up with.  "Look Jemma, the Polar Bear is in the dark Cave so don't put in the penguins because remember they eat them!"

In Parsha, this week the green room learned about Parshas Bo.
We learned about the birth of Moshe, and how Yocheved and Miriam took care of this special baby, by putting him in a special basket in the river.
Years later this baby boy turned to be Moshe Rabeinu the leader of the Jewish people and lead them out of Egypt.
We also learned about how Pharaoh, the king of Egypt was very mean to the Jewish people and made them work a lot, without taking a break.  Hashem sent 10 plagues to Pharoah and Egypt.  The plagues were:
Blood
Frogs
Lice
Wild animals
Death of the farm animals
Boils
Fire and hail
Grasshopper
Darkness
Death of the first born.
After each plague Pharaoh told the Jewish nation to leave Egypt and afterwards he changed his mind.
After the last plague Pharaoh kept his word and he let the Jews leave.
The Jewish people didn't have time to bake the bread as they were running out of egypt, so it baked on their backs and that is why we eat Matzah!
Because of this special story, and the miracles, we celebrate Passover every year.

We are excited about next week and the Exploration of Tu B'Shvat!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Morah Devora and Morah Amanda