Dear Parents,
When school closes for Professional Development, we teachers have a wonderful opportunity to learn about things that we can then use in the classroom. It reinvigorates our teaching, and we often take away new ideas to employ as a part of our curriculum. Monday was one of those days. On Monday, Ellen Allard, a top facilitator in the world of Jewish music education, worked with us on shifting perspective on the role of music in our classrooms, and how much critical development happens every single time we sit down to sing songs and make music. We even learned songs that we have since started to teach the children. Although we did not have Music with Andrew this week, we were fortunate enough for him to come in to our class and bring the lollipop drums for us and sing “You Are My Best Friend.” The children had to follow the beat on their drums with Andrew’s beat, banging it however many times he did, or speeding up or slowing down to mimic him. We have been going next door to the “block room” where the children have been able to play with the blocks, using their creativity to build magnificent things. They have been making towers, creating roads to cross, turning them over to rock on, and putting the long noodle like pieces inside the small circular ones. It’s been such a pleasure watching their creativity spark and seeing what they come up with. We painted with paintbrushes, round brushes and rollers on large popsicle sticks with fall colors to make a collage. The children worked on their fine motor skills by turning the brush correctly in their hand to get the correct grip on it, and some needed some guidance with the rollers, working on the back and forth motion of the brush in action. We had the pleasure of having Lemor read us and the Hebrew immersion Pre-K a book on Thanksgiving. Our children were in awe of how big the Pre-K children were and how nicely they were sitting and they took some cues from them. We talked about Thanksgiving, Native Americans and Pilgrims and giving thanks to everyone. Next week we will talk about what we are thankful for. We went to Shabbat services and had a front row seat to sing along with Ditza and Rabbi Josh. The Rabbi talked to the children a little about giving Thanks and we sang “Baruch Ata Adonai, Thank You G-d” and he went around the synagogue asking various children what they were thankful for. It was heartwarming hearing some children saying thank you for their families, their beds, their toys and food to name a few. Shabbat Shalom, Debbie, Erika and Gali Reminders: Monday, November 20th is our children only Thanksgiving Feast. You do not need to send lunch. No school Wednesday, November 22-24th in Observance of Thanksgiving.
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