Preparing for Passover

Both last week and this week we spent some time on Friday doing a little "Passover cleaning." Last week we went on a search for chametz (bread products), which was really pieces of brown paper. The children took paper bags around and used a candle (unlit), a spoon and a feather to find the chametz. They put the pieces they found into the paper bag and then we got rid of the chametz!

This week we took it one step further and cleaned the room with feather dusters and spray bottles. The children really enjoyed the opportunity to get the classroom ready for Passover.

I am sorry that I am unable to really add any more information from this past week at The Gan. I spent most of the week taking care of my sick children. However, I was thrilled to be able to be back, even if it was for just one day before our break starts. The children came in and were very excited to tell me about things they did earlier in the week. It really sounds like they had a wonderful time doing activities with Morah Tzivie and learning more about Passover!

I hope all of our families have a great Passover. I look forward to seeing everyone back at The Gan on Wednesday, April 7th.

Searching for chametz.

Cleaning the classroom for Passover

What is round, flat and crunchy?

A look at this week:

That's right...matzah!

This week we focused our learning on matzah and numbers. We continued to work on our number books. Many children have almost finished their books that talk about the numbers involved with Pesach. And some still have a ways to go. Hopefully they will finish these next week! While working so hard on these and combining math and writing together we also had lots of other exciting activities going on this week! In the home living area the children became bakers by sticking their hands into a bucket of flour and using different measuring cups and spoons to work on the concept of 1, 1/2, and 1/4. They also were able to put paper matzahs into our own cardboard box turned brick oven! Then the children could also take their paper matzahs over to the block area where they were building ovens. In the mean time, they also made matzah rubbings in art and played with playdough, transforming the playdough into matzah. As a group we made afikomen covers while we also talked about taking a whole piece of paper and folding it in 1/2. We also talked about 1/4 when we did this but we did not fold our paper again. After folding the paper in half, we hole punched it and the children used yarn to lace up the covers. On another day we traced paper plates and then cut them out, covered them in brown crayon and with things that are brown to make our own matzahs. We made three matzahs each as that is what we use during the Passover Sedar. On Wednesday we took a little walk over to the Chabad and tried to make our own matzahs. We focused on just adding flour and water together to make matzah instead of adding other ingredients, such as eggs and yeast. The children enjoyed rolling the matzah out and poking it with plastic forks.

Listening In:

It is always interesting to see or listen to what events in the children's lives enter their play. The children decided this week to play that they were riding (or swinging) to the hospital and going on bike rides to get medicine. This was influenced by a conversation by a child.

Of course it is always fun for me to see such great excitement come out of a learning activity that takes place in the classroom. I just loved listening to Miriam exclaim that she "did it!" every time she was able to write a number in her number book correctly!

Looking at next week:

We will be finishing up our unit on Pesach next week. We are going to focus on the sedar (the ritual meal that we have during Passover). We will be trying some of the special foods that we have at the sedar and talking about the sedar plate (and even making one out of a paper plate and writing the words on it). We are also going to be adding to our number books.

Special Reminder:

We are having our dedication ceremony on Sunday at 11:00. The children will be singing a couple of songs during this event. We hope to see you there!

Excited to make an afikomen cover!

Trying to lace up the cover!

Playing with flour

Making paper matzah

Decorating the paper matzah

Making matzah

Going from Slavery to Freedom

A Look At This Week:

With Pesach (or Passover) only three weeks away, we started our three week theme about the holiday when the Jews were slaves in Egypt and were able to make an exodus to freedom. We started the week by talking about what the Jews were expected to do during their slavery lives. Our main focus was on pyramids. We felt how heavy a single small brick was and then talked about how they used much bigger bricks to make pyramids. The children really enjoyed all the pyramid activities. Int he block area they used our large Lego like blocks and tried to build a pyramid. The children made paper pyramids and then counted the "bricks" they used and wrote the number next to each line of bricks. We used the light table this week to let the children explore with the magnetic shapes. Some children used the triangles to make pyramids and others used the squares to make the walls of the pyramids. In art the children were able to make a brick rubbings so they could see the rough texture in the bricks.

We also talked about how it felt to be slaves. We discussed how sore and tired their feet probably were and the children were then able to trace their feet and cut the tracing out. They then used their paper feet to measure things around the room. We also enjoyed a very special snack to represent how the slaves may have eaten! The children received a couple of crackers and one cup of water. Then we pretended to be royalty and moved over to pillows and more comfortable chairs so they could eat their fruit (the rest of their snack for the day) reclining. We had a great conversation about how "yucky" the crackers were and how "yummy" the pears tasted! The children all chose to be royalty by the end of this snack!!

After discussing the slavery of the Jews, we moved on to other parts of the Passover story. Some children chose to play with the frogs and water bucket (frogs being just one of the ten plagues). Some children chose to go to home living where they put our doll (temporarily named Moshe) into a basket and pretended to send it down the river. And we also painted a paper blue, drew our family on another paper and then attached the two (with the blue paper cut in half). This represented when the water was parted so the Jews could cross over to safety. Please check out our bulletin board display as the children really took pride in making their families, talking about how many people were in their families and then sharing with their classmates!

One additional project that we started this week and will continue through the next week or two was our Pesach Number Books. In this book we are using the numbers that are important to Pesach and writing them and then using the numbers to represent an aspect of Pesach. We are also adding other items to our books to represent the meaning on the number for the holiday!

Listening in to conversations:

I am always happily amazed when the children get excited about things in the classroom! It was so nice to hear the children exclaim that they want to go to specific learning centers when I explained what activities we were doing. A number of time I heard, "I want to go to the ...." as soon as I explained what to do at that center. And if too many children were already there, when we chose our second activity they would ask me again if they can go to the center they wanted originally. It was very nice! And the children also really took to the conversations about the frogs as I frequently found at least one child hoping around the classroom like a frog!

One child hurt his tongue this week. All the other children kept coming up to him and asking if he was alright. Although at times the children may argue with each other, they all really care about their fellow classmates as well!

Looking at next week:

As we continue to talk about Pesach, we are going to spend this week focusing on matzah. Now that we know that we had to leave Egypt quickly, we are going to learn more about that special unleavened bread that was made. The children will be pretending to search The Gan for chametz (leavened breads). They are going to pretend to make matzah as well as talk about numbers 1/4, 1/2 and 1 as we work on making our own afikomen (the dessert matzah) case.

Finding out how heavy a small brick feels!

Working on a Lego pyramid

Building pyramid walls at the light table

Tracing her foot to use to measure things around the room

Frogs, Frogs and more frogs (at least we can play with these!)

Making a paper number pyramid

Drawing their families

Working on her Passover Number Book

Eating crackers and drinking water for snack

Sitting like Royalty with a pear for snack!

They are on our doorposts...

A look at this week:

We spent the week talking about the mezuzah and also houses. These two go hand in hand since we have mezuzot on our doorposts of our homes. The children enjoyed pretending to be the prayer inside the mezuzah by rolling their way to the rainforest/reading room for story!

We started the week out by making looking at a few mezuzot and talking about the differences. Then we used some home made clay to make our own. Later in the week we enjoyed decorating them. We also had the chance to take the words "mezuzah on the door" and make many other words out of the letters. In writing we took the letter of our first names and came up with three more words that also started with that letter. We also played memory with alphabet cards and had the chance to use the letter stamps in art to stamp and recognize letters and words!

The children really enjoyed coloring a class mezuzah, which can be found on one of the bulletin boards. I really enjoyed just writing down what I heard going on while they colored. It was interesting to see who was concentrating so hard on their coloring and did less talking, who was helping others, who was sharing and who was just joining into the conversations that were taking place!

In home living the children discussed that they could pretend to kiss the mezuzah (something we heard about in our main story this week as well as we say when we daven (pray) in the morning) as well as just play in home living as if they were in a house. In blocks the children tried to build houses and even figure out a way to demonstrate a mezuzah on the door!

For math this week we spent time rolling a die. The children then added windows and doors to match the number they rolled. We also put together some mezuzah puzzles.

Listening in to the conversation:

As mentioned, I really enjoyed listening to the children talk while they colored the class mezuzah. That conversation is on the bulletin board with the mezuzah they colored. However, my favorite comment that I heard this week was when Josh was coloring on his writing page. He called to me and said, "Morah Amanda. Look! I got my name!" He was pointing to his picture where there was an "o" drawn on his page. He was very proud of himself as he showed this to me!

Looking ahead at next week:

The next three weeks we are going to be studying different parts of the next holiday, Pesach or Passover.

Next week we are going to focus on the story of Pesach as well as numbers. We are going to be making a number book, building pyramids, talking about the ten plagues. Measuring with our feet and writing about the amount of people in our families!

Building a house with a mezuzah "at" the door

Playing letter memory

Spelling out words

Coloring a mezuzah

Rolling like the prayer inside the mezuzah case

Doing some writing!

Letter stamping

Making our own mezuzah cases

Putting together a mezuzah puzzle

Dropping a die and adding the right number of windows and doors

All dressed up and celebrating we will do!

A Look at this week:

With Purim around the corner (Sunday) we have been finishing up our final week on learning about Purim. We talked a little about giving Shalach Manot (gifts of food) during Purim and hamantaschen (the three cornered cookie). We also heard more about the Purim story and even had our own Purim celebration! With the two main concepts of Shalach Manot and Hamantaschen, we were able to fill our days with fun, learning activities. This week we matched the shapes of hamantaschen filling with paper shapes and the words to describe them. We also filled a basket with hamantaschen to match the number we chose to work with. In blocks the children became creative as they tried to build baskets to put our shalach manot in. In home living they pretended to make baskets of shalach manot and give them to their fellow friends who were in home living with them. In art we played with very special clay; we made foods and then let them dry. While talking about foods, we also replanted our classroom garden and checked out how well our raisins are doing. The grapes have definitely started shriveling down and losing some of their juiciness.

For writing this week, some of the children attempted to write a recipe for hamantaschen. We also created special hamantaschen hats that some of the children were thrilled to show off before reading our story at the end of the day on Monday!

On Wednesday we had our big Purim celebration! All of the children from The Gan arrived, many in costume, and shared some experiences with their parent(s). We started out with our good morning train and paraded into the play area while we shook our groggers (noise makers) and sang songs. Then we returned to the classroom for mask making and hamantaschen making activities. Then we said good bye to our parents and our costumes and continued on with our day!

Listening In:

While the children were dressed as Queen Ester (3 of them), King Ahashverous (2 of them, though one didn't want to wear his costume), a dragon, a banana, Mordecia and Batman, Morah Tzivie also dressed as Queen Ester and I was dressed as a reporter. I took the opportunity to listen in to some of the conversations that the children were having with their parents while doing activities. Here is what I heard:

Mom: You can hang out with Batman today.

Josh: I can?

Mom: Yes!

Josh: And Batman will play with me?

Mom: Of course, cause you and Noah are friends.

Lizzy: Can I have some chips?

Morah Tzivie: Sure.

Mom: Do you want some help Lizzy?

Lizzy: No; Mussie's mom

Morah Tzivie: Mussies's mom can help.

Mom: The bow is coming to life.

Tyrus: It is? It's coming to life?

(They were coloring green dots on the bow of the mask at the time)

Mom: Noah, do you want more stickers?

Noah: No.

Mom: Look. Here are feathers. Do you want some feathers? What color do you want?

Noah picks a feather

Mom: You picked a green one.

It was a lot of fun to watch the children interact with their parents and to listen to the conversations that took place. And it was great to see so many of the parents at the celebration, sharing the experience with their children!

Looking ahead at next week:

Next week we are going to talk about the mezuzah, homes and also writing. The three of these go well together since mezuzahs are the little prayer boxes that are found on the door frames of Jewish homes (and other Jewish establishments). We will be talking about what makes our homes so important to us. We will be discussing where you find mezuzahs in a home and how the prayers in mezuzahs are written. We will be attempting to make our own ink and then trying to use it with feathers to do some writing. And of course, while we are working on writing we are going to do some letter, letter sound and word work!

Our Purim Parade!

The King has arrived!

Listening to directions for the activities and showing off our costumes!

Making masks at our Purim Party

Making Hamantaschen at our Purim Party

Showing off our Hamantaschen hats

Making clay foods

Weaving a basket

Playing the Hamantaschen Shape Match game

Building a basket for Shalach Manot

Listen to the music

A look at this week:

We continued learning about Purim this week by focusing on music and happy celebration! The children were amazed with the musical items brought into the classroom. They were able to go over to the little mini grand piano and play some music, make shakers and more! We started out by talking about the seven basic letters used in music, focusing our week on the letters A,B,C,D,E,F and G. We made sure we could recognize these letters and even did a music letter train by putting the letters in a repetitious order. While playing the piano, the children were able to put letter blocks into the order they wanted to play and then they found the corresponding letter on the keys of the piano. In home living this week we pretended that we were part of a band, making music at a celebration by playing the maracas and the tambourine! In art this week we made our own music by using staff paper and adding notes to it. As a science project, we used plastic eggs of different sizes and filled them with items, such as rice, corn, pasta and bells and then listened to hear which eggs sounded louder and which sounded softer. We also learned that the pasta could fit into all the eggs (big or small). We had felt notes that could be put onto the felt box and then they could read the notes the way we have learned to read them in our music class on Fridays. We also had a musical instrument memory game and had the chance to write about what different musical instruments sound like.

The children also enjoyed making their own instruments and noise makers. We made tambourines with pie pans and bells and we made groggers (noise makers for Purim) out of cups and corn kernels or rice and also out of paper plates and beans.

Listening in to the conversation:

The best conversation of the week took place on Wednesday when Jayden saw the piano.

Jayden: Does this really work?

Morah Tzivie: I am sure you will find out when you come back in here.

Jayden walked over to the piano and hit a few keys.

Jayden: Look! It really works!

Later in the day, Jayden was still amazed by the piano really working!

Looking forward to next week:

We will be spending one more week on Purim. This week we will be continuing our conversation about patterns and we weave baskets and talk about Shalach Manot (the gifts of food that are given on Purim). We will also be making different foods out of playdough, revisiting our raisin experiment to see what has happened to our grapes and having our own Purim celebration in the classroom on Wednesday!

Making cup groggers

Creating her own music using musical notes and staff paper

Writing about sounds of musical instruments

Musical instrument memory

Playing the wooden (homemade) harp like instrument

Making tambourines

Making the musical letter train

Listening to the shakers

Playing on the piano

Getting ready to play in the band