Final touches, latkes and playing dreidel.....

The children came in ready to add the final touches to their menorahs. They glued beautiful jewels to the wooden bases of their menorahs.  The menorahs were wrapped in dreidel-stamped tissue paper. All of these little steps came together in a meaningful way -                                                                                                           

They were amazed and proud of their beautiful creations. 

"my mommy will love it"

   "my daddy made it with me"

     "its Chanukah, right?"

What else went on today? 

*** We made and ate latkes. 

*** We had a puppet show about the days leading up to Chanukah.  In the story, our stuffed animal puppets, (Butterfly, Cupcake, Chewy, Occie, Horsie and Puppy), were praying and singing like the Jewish people did.  When they heard the Greek soldiers coming, they quickly took out their dreidels so they wouldn't be caught praying. 

The children participated in the play by singing Bim Bam, Shabbat Shalom, led by Elet. When we looked for oil for the Temple, Elet voluntered to be the Greek King and Dalya generously offered to give us her oil as did the rest of the class. It was great to see their level of interest/participation and their ability to remember the story, specifically the part that the oil lasted for eight days instead of only one day.

.... a spontaneous group hug after talking about leaving for a break. Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us. They are truly a joy! 

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah! 

We welcomed dads to our class....

Today we welcomed the dads to the classroom. What a treat! We were so sorry that a few  children and dads couldn't make it due to illness. We hope that everyone will be feeling better very soon. 

 

We painted the menorahs that we had made with gold metallic paint. The children were very pleased with the outcome. 

 They enjoyed seeing their dad's reactions to the cookies and bookmark they had made.

 But mostly, they were thrilled that their dads were there. 

 

 

Tomorrow we will make latkes and have our own fun celebration before we leave for Winter break. We started talking about the break by introducing the idea of a calendar and how many days it would be before we returned to school. We learned a song about the days of the week which hopefully, they'll be singing soon!

A peek into making special cookies with Morah Shirel...

A peek into making special cookies with Morah Shirel

                                                     Friends mixing the eggs with the sugar.

                                                        Chaya and Nechama Lieba waiting for their turn...

Jacob decides to try cookie making after watching his friends having fun. 

Jacob thought it was going to be challah... 

The other children insisted that it was going to be cookies. Elet chimed in with his opinion...."cookie dough."

We had to compare and wait and see....

Voila! -- cookie dough... ready to make Chanukah cookies!

There were many learning steps: measuring ingredients.. learning to crack and check eggs... mixing, adding flour, more mixing, chilling the dough and predicting the outcome... rolling out the dough... needing more flour.....using cookie cutters.......adding sprinkles....baking the cookies in the oven....smelling them baking... waiting....
and finally... 
eating them...."Yummy!"

Counting the days until Chanukah!

The children came in today very excited about the large menorah outside. "How are they going to light it? "

In class they were busy:

....mixing and frying up some potato latkes...




.....singing Chanukah songs....






.....reading books about Chanukah,

Making our own menorahs

and our own wrapping paper 

 

In addition: 

  we are sharpening colored pencils with our new sharpener

  writing in journals

  ...and working together (helping friends learn to make letters)

 

Keeping Everyone Calm 

This is an exciting time of year - we are learning about Chanukah, the foods, symbols, and the story of the oil miracle.  It can also be a time when children get over-stimulated by a bombardment of seeing toys, gifts, and decorations everywhere. At school we have tried to stay focused on the fun of Chanukah without losing the main themes and values. We have also done many calming activities such as stretching, breathing and pretending with movement. Yesterday, several children enjoyed washing dishes in warm soapy water,  We have started role playing different issues using puppets and stuffed animals. 

The children are very excited about lighting the menorah, counting candles, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting the holiday. Next week we are planning on making latkes and our own usable menorahs!  We are also talking about welcoming the fathers into the class and getting to do something special together. 

This week has been devoted to learning more about the story of the Macabees with the theme developing of being brave or. having courage.  On the 3-4 year old level we talk about being willing to try things that we might feel a little afraid to do. I am collecting ideas by observing their play. For example, we have observed a few children wanting to try something new on the playground, but they are hesitant (for good reason)!  When they are ready and they get some extra support from a Morah, they will often take the risk and try it out. This experience with success leads to greater motivation to learn. Pretty soon they practice the new skill until they have mastered it. We will also explore the related idea of standing up for what we believe in....like the Macabees did.  We are not focusing on the battles and warrior aspects of the story,  but we have talked about a small group of soldiers led by the Maccabees, making the large army of Antiochus retreat and leave the Temple. 

Have a wonderful Shabbat and weekend. 

Morah Anne and Morah Shirel

Chanukah is in the Air

Chanukah is in the Air 

Today there were many opportunities for the children to connect to the holiday of Chanukah

We signed in using real candles instead of animal pictures. Several children worked together to help Elet build the Temple. We were very happy to see the children sharing materials and ideas. Elet was very proud of himself when it was complete. 

Hilary and Elet used magna-tiles to complete their work. 

 

 Sara enjoyed wearing a crown made by Morah Sarah 

We lit one candle in the menorah and the wick of one cup oil to see which would last longer - the candle or the oil...the children made predictions. "The candle will last because it is bigger."  .... we observed that the oil outlasted the candle!

We counted candles, children, oil cups, and everything we could find.  We sang "How Many Candles?" which emphasizes the growing number of candles with 

one more added each night. 

We also sang old favorites, Chanukah, Oh Chanukah, Come Light the Menorah  and

  I Have a Little Dreidel 

We re-enacted the story of the miracle of the oil by pretending that our classroom was the Temple after it had been defiled and then saved.  We had to clean it by sweeping and washing. Then we were ready to find some oil. We searched until we finally found enough to last one day. It was amazing that the oil lasted eight days until new olive oil could be made and delivered!

We invited the 2's class to be our guests as we lit both the oil menorah and the candle menorah, pretending that it was the last night of Chanukah. We sang songs and

made applesauce to eat with our freshly made latkes (pretend cooking). We practiced saying (singing) the Chanukah bracha. It was fun to share this time with friends!

We will make our own menorahs and we also plan to make latkes and applesauce.... Stay tuned!

ALL ON A WALK....


Despite the wet, misty weather, we took a walk up the street for an adventure. We put on our investigator glasses, held hands with a partner and looked for different things. We found vans, houses, bushes and also: pine cones and pine needles. We learned that pine needles were used by some Native Americans as paint brushes.  We will try to use  them tomorrow for paint brushes back in the classroom.

 We learned how to freeze (hold perfectly still) when a Morah says the word.

 On the way back we took steps in many different forms - as a bunny, frog, lion, bird, tiger and as a butterfly, We also tried many different ways to move forward including: marching, tip-toeing, jumping and galloping. We will try to recall these different elements of the walk tomorrow.

Earlier in the day, the children had the chance to write on the White Board. After doing it alone they also shared the white board space with a friend., 

They also cleaned the board when they were finished. 

FLASHLIGHT FUN,,,

We explored with flashlights today. We learned: 

 *** how difficult it is to give up the flashlight when your turn was over.. we practiced this a lot 

              using a circle game of pass-the-flashlight.

***  how to share three flashlights with seven children. After a few tears, they all got the idea.

***  that we need to find a dark space to see the flashlight clearly

***  we can make the lights dance on the ceiling 

***  it was even more fun when all three of the flashlights were "dancing" together 

***  our hand glows when we put it on top of the light. 

Lastly, we counted candles in many different ways, we even added and subtracted them! 

More on counting tomorrow. 

End of the Week Wrap-up...

Today we: went to a Shabbat party, shaped our own challah, printed with many different kinds of stamps, played with light and shadows (using an overhead projector), and played with friends. Their play and exploration is so important to encourage as it is the medium through which they learn the most. 

We gave tzedakah, sang and carried the play Torahs with joy....

We continued our conversations about Chanukah:  Jacob's mom brought in a beautiful menorah and handmade candles. We turned out the lights and lit the menorah pretending that it was the first night of Chanukah. We started to learn the brachot.  Two children asked: "is this for real?" I reiterated that it was pretend and we were practicing. I'm not sure if that made any sense to them, so don't be surprised if your child comes home thinking Chanukah has already started! 

Next week we will focus on: 

• counting the candles from 1- 8 (or higher) - relating these numbers to lighting  the Chanukah menorah. 
• deepening their understanding that each number (1, 2, 3, etc). symbolizes a concept. We will continue to expose them to recognizing numbers. We have started putting a number in each center to indicate the maximum number of children who can work at each center.
• looking at the properties of oil and lighting an oil menorah as well as lighting candles. 
• Return to the Chanukah story and learn about the symbols of Chanukah. We will do this through songs, puppetry,  making latkes and applesauce to eat in the classroom and continuing to learn about night and day. 

  Hands coming together!

SHABBAT SHALOM.

Chanukah and more.....

To introduce Chanukah we started with reading books about the symbols of the holiday earlier this week.

  We talked about light and dark and tried to make our room dark by blocking out the light. Today we started making our own banners which depict daytime and night time. The children explored using paint, glitter-glue, tissue paper and stamps.

Tomorrow we will use flash lights and candles to contrast dark and light. How much light comes into the room with one candle? five candles? eight  flash lights?

 

We also learned about the miracle of the oil by hearing the story of the Maccabees needing to clean up the Temple and find oil to re-light the menorah.

 Other fun happenings:

Spontaneous yarn cutting...

Journal writing

 Elet spent time carefully constructing this garbage truck.

 Nechama Leiba and Chayla had a wonderful time playing together in the shaving cream. While washing up Nechama Leiba said, "I really loved that!" Their excitement was contagious.

Dalya used magna-tiles to create a display where each animal had its own spot to stand. 

Sara and Hilary made lots of circles at the new Writing Center.