It is raining out all week and we are making the best of it inside. We started our week off with PE. The children began learning a fun game, “Full Touch Kick Ball.” They are learning this and practicing for Dad/Grandfather’s Week. The children are hoping that some of the Dads and Grandfathers will visit on Monday, February 4th and play the game along with them. It will be a lot of fun.
As part of our ongoing learning and practicing of letter recognition, we have been working on our last names. The children are listening for their last name and spelling it out. Within the next couple of weeks, we are confident that they will begin to write their full names. If your child has a middle name, please send us that information. It will be fun to put this all together. The more the children know about each other the tighter our family becomes. Talk to them about their names and why you chose the name. We can have them relay the story to us. We are also continuing our discussions about Dr. King and Tu B’shevat, connecting the two holidays to each other by concentrating on the values that each one teaches us. We are healing the world and taking care of our community. I.e. the physical, emotional and spiritual community we are all a part of. The children sat around in a circle listening to Dr. King’s, “I Have a Dream” speech. The room was so quiet you could hear only the sound coming out of the computer. Question is, what does Equality mean came up as we spoke about the speech. Some of the children were amazed at the amount of people standing on the National Mall watching and listening to Dr. King speak. To quote a comment, “There are millions of people there.” The children’s eyes never left the screen. Teacher Fern also showed them a picture of Dr. King taken up close by her uncle who attended the march and the speech. What was interesting to hear was your children’s answers when asked what they heard and learned from the books we have read about Dr. King. The thing that seemed to resonate most was that the Black people could not use the same toilets as White people. We wonder what they say to you when you ask the question? Music came to us this week and the children were very excited to welcome Maestro to our classroom. They say songs and danced like trees in the wind. After music they had to show off the classroom to Maestro and show him all the fun things that we do during circle time. Last week we introduced a magic growing tree and this week we are experimenting and trying to make our own magic trees with cardboard, water, salt and ammonia. We are going to have few trees and leave out different ingredients to see what works and what doesn’t. We have also planted grass seeds to make a Grass Head, our version of a Chai Pet Head. Please remember that all our projects are open to all the children and not all of them want to participate in the activity. It is an open center guided by a teacher, nothing mandatory and we won’t force a child to do something they don’t want to participate in. Each of your children have their own strengths and passions and we want to nurture those. This week Rabbi Josh spoke about Kindness to everyone and our environment. This fit into all our discussions for the week. We had a lot of time indoors this week and took advantage of the time to cook twice. On Monday we painted winter snowflake sugar cookies. They looked very beautiful with their colors and special Spring toppers of flowers and butterflies. The children picked their own topper, some of the children requested the color they wanted for the topper. On Thursday we made fresh granola using 3 different dried fruits for Tu B’shevat. We measured and mixed the Oatmeal, honey, brown sugar vanilla, cinnamon, raisins, cranberries and dates. We had a lot of granola eaters asking for seconds. Try it at home with the children, they are the best Jr. chefs. Friday, our Jr. Chefs came in ready to knead and braid the challah. If your child hasn’t brought home a fresh baked challah, talk to them about trying out the activity-- it is a lot of fun. We welcomed Liam’s family to Shabbat this week. Special Thank you to Leo, Katya and Tanel for the delicious fresh picked oranges. We are using them for our Tu B’shevat Seder on Tuesday. Shabbat Shalom, Ren and Fern Reminders: Monday January 21st School Closed in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day. February 2nd Wise Gala and Silent Auction Week of February 4th - 8th Dad and Grandfather’s Week (All the fathers have received an email reminding them about the week and our weekly specialist. Monday February 21st School Closed in honor of Presidents Day. Tuesday February 22nd School Closed for Professional Development Day
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