Week of April 8-12, 2019
Room 8 continued to learn and prepare for Passover all week long! We wanted the children to obtain a strong grasp on the story of Passover just like they did with Purim. In order to do this, we tried to include a theme of the upcoming holiday in most activities throughout the week. First, the art center focused on creating Elijah and Miriam cups. We continued to connect our classroom art projects and made the Passover project an extension of what we have been learning. The last art project focused on the use of acrylic paint so we incorporated this technique into decorating our cups. We also integrated the use of tape, which is another past medium we worked with. We can’t wait for you all to see their final creations. Each cup is unique in its design, techniques, and mediums, as well as, beautiful and functional artwork for each of your family Seders. After listening to Teacher Aaliyah retell the Passover story a couple of times, the children had the opportunity to portray the characters and put on their own performance. We noticed that all of the children expressed great excitement for this activity, especially after acting out the story of Purim. We cast each child in a role and provided them with props and a set to take them back to old Egypt. The story began with Jordan as Baby Moses, Kate as Miriam (Moses’ sister), and Evie as Yocheved (Pharaoh’s daughter). Ask your children how the plot unfolds. Brayden took on the role of Pharaoh and ordered his slaves, Luca, to dig with their hammers and build those pyramids. Blake, grown-up Moses, paraded around with his ruler staff trying to save the Jewish people. Since Pharaoh chose to not listen, plagues came upon the Egyptians. Grayson portrayed the first plague of bloody water, and then came Cameron, who hopped around to show how the frogs attacked as he threw rubber frogs around the palace. Each child used their imagination to fully embrace their part in the story, which allowed them to give a stellar performance. Playing a character provides numerous benefits to young children. It allows them to develop a strong sense of self-esteem. Through encouraging each child to project their voice and fully embody the nature of whichever role they are playing, the children can develop a strong sense of self-confidence. Role playing helps to expand their imagination and vocabulary, as well as, their physical movement. There is nothing better than seeing the children take pride in their own performances and in the work of their peers. In light of emergent curriculum and the joy we see in all of the friends in Room 8, we will continue to incorporate role playing and theatrical performances in future topics through the rest of this year. We have noticed that the friends in Room 8 continue to show a love of coloring. In keeping with the theme of Passover, we incorporated their interest in drawing in another activity. After acting out the story of Passover, the children chose one of the 10 plagues to illustrate on a blank index card. While some of the plagues are more straightforward, like lice or frogs, others were more complicated. We encouraged the children to draw a picture of their chosen plague in whichever way they imagined it to take place. Giving the child free reign to draw their own interpretation helps to reinforce their individuality and creativity. Avital chose to draw a frog, and Kate illustrated her idea of the bloody water. Luca, on the other hand, drew many small little bugs to represent the lice. We want to tell you all how thankful we are for taking part in our Room 8 class Seder. Thank you for providing the delicious food, participating in the reading and the singing of the Haggadah, and spending time in our classroom. We are forever grateful of all the support you give to our class! We hope you all have a wonderful, fun and restful Spring Break, and we can’t wait to begin our last month of school when we return. Shabbat Shalom! Mari & Aaliyah Reminders:
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Week of 4/1-5/2019
Room 8 spent the week immersed in theme of Passover. We started off by reading a book called Sarah’s Passover. This story touched on every aspect of the story and traditions associated with Passover. From the items on the Seder plate, to the significance of reclining, to afikomen game, the children were able to hear a well-rounded explanation of how this holiday is celebrated. We asked the children to take note of how they will celebrate the holiday with their families. After break, we will discuss the similarities and differences between all of our various celebrations. The children showed a great interest in the concept of the afikomen. Many shared that they took part in the search for the matzah during last year’s Seders. In light of their excitement, we decided to hide the afikomen in our class every day, which gives each child the chance to find it! Brayden was the first friend to find the afikomen this week. We will continue to hide it each day leading up to Passover and can’t wait to see who finds it. In addition to the story of Passover, the Pre-K as a grade level decided to focus on two specific aspects of the story. Each class has the opportunity to create either Elijah’s cup or Miriam’s cup as this year’s Passover project. In order to conduct this project, we needed to explain the concept of each of these cups. The Pre-K team chose to focus on this particular concept for two reasons. The first being that we wanted to demonstrate that smaller details of a story are just as important as the main plot. Elijah and Miriam might not be the main characters of the Passover story, but they add important symbolism that makes our Seders meaningful. This leads me to the second reason for concentrating on Elijah and Miriam. The symbolism tied to these two characters connects to the overall theme of the school year, kindness. First, we explained the significance of Miriam. Ask your child who Miriam is in the story. She is Moses’ sister and was sent to watch over Moses as he floated down the river. During the Seder, we set out a cup filled with water to represent Miriam’s well, which served as a source of water as the Israelites wandered the desert. This piece of the Seder allows us to remember the kindness Miriam showed to her brother and include this important figure in our celebration. In addition, while many of us have heard of Elijah and his significance, we wanted to highlight this to the children. We explained that Elijah is a prophet, like a spirit, that comes to everyone’s Seder. He comes in through a cracked door and takes a sip of wine, which symbolizes a blessing over your Seder and for the rest of the year. We emphasized that Elijah is known to come back in various forms to ensure that everyone is being treated with kindness. In light of the emphasis we have put on kindness this school year, the children had the opportunity to make one of the two cups mentioned above as a symbol of kindness at their own Seder. The difference between the two cups is that Miriam’s cup must be clear so that we can see the water in it, while Elijah’s cup can be decorated throughout. We gave the children an opportunity to make their own decision regarding the kindness character they chose to represent at their Seder. We can’t wait for you to see their incredible creations on plastic wine/water glasses. Using acrylic paint, the children came up with various designs to decorate each cup differently. Some of the techniques included using tape to block off certain sections, dotting the cup with the tip of a paint brush, and painting the base and stem in various colors. They will be a lovely and meaningful addition to everyone’s family Seder. Room 8 also discussed the items found on the Passover Seder plate, as well as, what each represents. We incorporated an activity involving taste into our Seder plate lesson. Exposing children to new foods helps children learn to expand their palate and identify different textures and tastes. In addition to expanding our sense of taste and learning more about what we like or don’t like, this sense allows the children to develop a deeper understanding of the importance of each Seder plate item. A child or adult is much more likely to remember a certain memory if it is associated with more than one of their senses. For example, we are more likely to remember a certain topic if we use our sense of hearing and taste, rather than just listening to a lecture. We wanted to give the kids in Room 8 a deeper experience when learning about parsley and bitter herbs to better ensure that they will grasp and retain this information. In our tasting, the children described each item differently. Scarlett said that she felt like she was chewing on broccoli, while Jordan said it tasted like cauliflower. Julian explained that it felt smooth on his tongue. Evie, Cameron, Christopher and Julian were the only children who actually enjoyed the parsley. While radishes are used as another form of the karpas during a Seder, we had the children taste this vegetable as our bitter herb because horseradish is too spic y. Radish and horseradish come from the same plant family, so we decided to keep the name similar to make it easily understandable for the children. Christopher compared it to an onion in that the radish had a red outside and a white inside and tasted spicy. Avital said it was very crunchy! Brayden was the only child in the class who liked the radish. He liked it so much he asked for seconds. The children had a blast getting to try these new foods. We will continue trying more Passover items next week. We continue to practice for our class Seder next Thursday, and we can’t wait to sing the Passover songs with our families. We hope you have a lovely weekend and Shabbat Shalom! Mari & Aaliyah Reminders: 2. 4/11- Room 8 Class Passover Seder – 9:15am 3. 4/15-4/26- Spring Break- NO school 3. 4/29- School Resumes Shabbat Family Schedule:
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Pre-K Room 8Mari Greifer Archives
March 2020
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