We can't believe we are coming to the end of our Room 8 Pre-K journey! We are so incredibly proud of your children and how much they have accomplished this year. We have watched your children grow into mature, hard-working, independent young ladies and gentlemen. We can successfully say that every child in our class will thrive next year in Kindergarten.
We also want to thank those that were able to attend our closing circle last Friday. Each child will get a copy of the special poem that we read in their final Pre-K journals. We are so excited for Pre-K celebration next week. The children have been working so hard at all of our rehearsals. We know that their performance is going to blow you away. We feel so proud and grateful to have had your children in our class and truly love and appreciate each and every child. We hope you all have a great weekend and Shabbat Shalom, Mari and Aaliyah Reminder: Thursday June 6-Pre-K celebration - (CHILDREN NEED TO BE DROPPED OFF AT 9AM AT PLOTKIN CHAPEL FOR A 9:30AM START). Reminders:
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We had quite a busy week in Room 8 as we begin to wrap up the year. The beginning of the week was spent learning about and celebrating Lag B’Omer. This is a joyous and celebratory holiday as we are remembering the end of the plague in Israel and an important Rabbi, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. To celebrate in Israel, we enjoy picnics, bonfires, singing and dancing. In honor of this holiday, we enjoyed a celebration with the entire Pre-K on the Room 7, 8, 9 Patio. Rabbi Josh helped explain the story behind Lag B’Omer, and Cantor Emma lead us in celebration songs. We shared beach towels with our friends from the other classes and enjoyed watermelon, oranges and baked potatoes! Ask your child if they sat with a new friend during snack or if they liked the baked potato! The friends in Room 8 also learned a new board game this week called Monza. This is a car race game that contains 6 wooden race cars and a board that resembles a colorful track. While most might assume that a race car game is all about speed, this board game requires using your head just as much as using the gas pedal. To play, you start by placing the car on the starting position by color and then, roll the 6 six-sided dice. The 6 sides of each dice is marked by color, rather than number. These colors match the colored spaces on the board. It is the player’s goal to use as many of the colors as possible to advance their car forward. This is done by matching the colors on the dice with the colors on the board on a 1:1 basis. However, the “rules of the road” don’t make this task as easy as it sounds. Ask your child how you advance out of the gates to begin with. Everyone had a chance to play this tricky game that kept each child on their toes. We continued to prepare for Pre-K Celebration by singing the song set every day. The kids are doing a fabulous job and working very hard to memorize the lyrics. We can see their excitement in learning these new tunes as they will breakout in song while playing Legos on the rug or drawing at the Art Center during free play. While we do not want this year to end, we cannot WAIT for all of you to see their performance. We hope you all have a great long weekend, and we will see you all next week for the final countdown of Pre-K! Shabbat Shalom! Mari & Aaliyah Reminders:
We jumped into the week with our very first Pre-K Celebration rehearsal. We practiced each song we will be performing with Maestro, and we learned where we will be standing on the bleachers. The entire Pre-K did an incredible job especially for our first rehearsal! We were so impressed by their cohesiveness and ability to focus for the entirety of the rehearsal. We have a few more weeks to practice, and we are certain you will all be blown away by their performance.
Room 8 continued with the conversation of travel after celebrating Israel’s birthday last week. Since last week was so busy, we did not have enough time to discuss the items that you need to travel to Israel. We focused on one very important piece needed to travel outside of the country, if not the most important item, the passport. We showed the children a faux paper passport booklet that resembles a real one. Each passport has a picture, name, date of birth, and an area for stamps. The children were excited to receive their very own passport, and some even thought it was the real deal and they had to bring it to the airport with them. After enjoying the globe piece of our Israel discussion, we wanted to incorporate it back into another lesson. Each child had the opportunity to take a closer look at the globe. Then, they pointed to one country, learned the name, and received a stamp for their place of choice. Ask your child where they want to visit! Their passport will go into their end-of-the-year journal. The children also learned a new skill this week in Room 8. We introduced the concept of mazes, another type of puzzle. The ability to complete a maze, whether it is on paper or a physical walking maze, helps children develop a huge variety of traits that help in all areas of life including social/emotional, physical, and mental. First, solving mazes helps learn patience, persistence, and teamwork. Each child had to sit with printable maze and take their time to find their way out the other side. In the end, finishing the maze gives them a sense of confidence and boosts their self-esteem. That feeling of “I did it!” proves that they can be successful. In addition, it improves their physical abilities like fine motor control and hand-eye coordination. To successfully maneuver through a maze on paper, we must use small movements with our pencil to make sure we draw a straight line through the narrow walls of the maze. Each time we do a maze the children are able to run into the black lines less and less. This skill, in turn, helps to perfect our penmanship and ability to write clearly and legibly. Lastly, solving mazes is just another activity to boost our problem-solving skills. They learn to plan, brainstorm, and visualize how they can find a route out of the maze. These skills help to improve a child’s cognitive thought process. We work to improve our cognitive abilities every day because it sets us up for independence and success in the future. Unfortunately, due to ERB testing, we were not able to have P.E. with Coach Danny this week. But instead of missing out on the fun, we conducted our own version of P.E. in our classroom. From crab-walk competitions to jumping jacks to push-ups, the children got in a great workout. They even got to play musical chairs, which is their absolute favorite! We cannot believe this year is coming to an end so soon, but we plan on savoring every moment of the next 3 weeks! We will start by celebrating Lag BaOmer next Tuesday. Please send your child with a beach towel for Tuesdays celebration. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Shabbat Shalom! Mari & Aaliyah Reminders:
Week of May 6-10, 2019
Room 8 had a very busy week filled with mommies, grandmas, and Israel’s birthday! We began the week by welcoming our moms and grandmas to our Havdalah service on Monday morning. Then, on Tuesday and Wednesday, we enjoyed spending time with our moms and grandmas in the classroom. We wanted all of the moms and grandmas to experience a typical morning in Room 8. They were able to partake in all of our regular morning activities including signing-in, partaking in building towers with the stacking cups, playing different types of board games, and drawing at the art table. Christopher enjoyed stacking cups on the carpet with his mom, while Brayden and Cameron and their moms played Monopoly. Scarlett and her mom, followed by Sasha and his mom, took on the challenge of playing Connect Four Launchers. Needless to say, we had a fabulous week spending time with our moms and grandmas in the class. On Thursday, the mommies and grandmas joined us for P.E., where they played tennis and volleyball. The children enjoyed a little friendly competition during a heated game of volleyball. We want to thank all of the moms for taking time out of your busy schedules to spend some time in our classroom. Your child are forever grateful, which you will see in their Mother’s Day gifts this weekend. In the midst of our busy Mother’s and Grandmother’s week, we also fit in some time to celebrate Israel’s birthday. Not only did we have a big celebration on Thursday, but we also made our own flags and learned about Haifa. The children had the opportunity to create their own flag of Israel. One side resembled the actual flag characterized by two blue stripes and a blue Star of David. Rather than putting the flag on the back side, the children made a birthday card for Israel. Whether they drew a picture of balloons, flowers or rainbows, all of the kids wrote the words, “Happy Birthday! Israel’s 71st.” This activity highlighted the important pieces of a significant Jewish holiday, as well as, helped us practice our drawing and hand-writing skills. The children even drew their own Jewish star. Ask your child what shapes make up a Star of David. We were very impressed with their penmanship that keeps getting better every day! As we mentioned last week, Room 8 was assigned the city of Haifa as our focus of Yom Ha’atzmaut. We began by discussing the characteristics of the entire country of Israel such as various types of terrain found there, the religions they practice, and the foods that they eat. Then, we transitioned the conversation, when we asked, “What do you want to learn about the city of Haifa?” The children looked at a couple of pictures that emphasize important pieces of Haifa and asked things like how do the boats get the boxes down to people, what language do they speak in Haifa, and how do they make the boats that big. We went on to explain that Haifa has a lot of big boats because it is a port city. Ask your child what else they learned about being a port city and if they learned any other important facts about Haifa. We tried to stay on the topic of Haifa, but it seemed that the children were more interested in the Dead Sea. They were amazed at the rocks of salt found in the sea and how they got there. They continued to ask us how the sea became so salty, so we did some research to find the answer! While we all thought it would be a simple answer, it actually was quite complicated and a little over all of our heads. There were many factors that lead to the high level of salt found in the Dead Sea such as the climate, the makeup of the soil under the sea, and the movement of the tectonic plates. In preparation for Thursday’s celebration, our class was assigned to make hummus for all of our other Pre-K friends. We needed quite a few garbanzo beans to feed 60 kids! Teacher Mari worked with a small group of children to make over a half a gallon of hummus. First, each child squeezed a half a lemon into a bowl to prepare the lemon juice, which was the first ingredient to go into the food processor. Then, we added 4 tablespoons of olive oil and turned the processor on for about 30 seconds. After draining and rinsing two 6 pound cans of garbanzo beans, the children scooped a small amount into the processor. The hummus began to come together. We added garlic salt to give the Israeli dish extra flavor. With a few more additions of olive oil, water, and garlic salt and a couple more stirs, the hummus was perfect! After the first batch, we did it all over again, many times, to fill an entire large bowl with hummus. For our celebration on Thursday, the children had the opportunity to replicate an Israeli Shuk (market) and take part in Israeli dancing with Teacher Ditza. They absolutely loved visiting each station to purchase snacks such as lemonade, pita and hummus, oranges and olives. They enjoyed eating the tasty snack with their peers from other classes during the celebration. They beamed with pride and confidence when they told other friends that they made the hummus themselves. We truly had an incredible week honoring Israel in many different ways including conversation, stories, food, dancing and more! We hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day and relaxing weekend! Shabbat Shalom! Mari & Aaliyah Reminders:
Week of April 29- May 3, 2019
Welcome back to all of our friends in Room 8! We hope everyone had a wonderful Spring Break and Passover filled with family and friends. On Monday, we loved hearing about everyone’s Spring Break adventures. From Grayson’s trip to New Jersey and Miami, to Cameron’s vacation to Cabo, to Kate’s journey to Circus Circus in Las Vegas, each child was bursting with excitement to share their experiences with their friends. We have a very busy month ahead, so we jumped right into our next unit on the holiday of Yom Ha’atzmaut, also known as Israel’s birthday. We began the conversation by asking, “Did you know that people are not the only ones that celebrate a birthday?” The children looked perplexed at this question and one even asked, “Does Disneyland have a birthday?” We explained that anything that has a start also has a birthday. Similar to the country we live in, America celebrates its birthday on July 4th. Ask your child how old Israel is turning this year. Our first activity to prepare for Israel’s birthday included making a card/flag. Since our penmanship is so spectacular, each child used their skills to write “Happy 71st Birthday, Israel!” on their card. Then, they each drew a unique picture with objects representing Israel or things that help celebrate a birthday like cakes, balloons, and presents. In addition, we discussed the shapes that make up the Jewish star so that the children can learn to draw their own on the back of their flag. We will use these as flags during our Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration with the entire Preschool next week. In light of this holiday, we took this opportunity to teach the children more information about the country of Israel. After opening up the Yom Ha’atzmaut conversation with a class discussion, we followed up by reading a book titled My Trip to Israel. We noticed that the children showed a particular interest in the information pertaining to the geography of Israel including where the country is located compared to America, the various cities and regions, the climate, and mostly, about the Dead Sea. They were amazed at the picture of rocks of salt that can be seen at the shore of the Dead Sea and asked why our beaches don’t look like this. We plan to research this topic to gain a deeper understanding of the science and history behind the salty dead sea. We also decided to conduct a small research project on one particular city of Israel. Haifa, a northern port city, is our chosen subject for Room 8. We briefly introduced this idea to the children, and they immediately asked if we could learn about the food that they eat in Haifa, or rather Israel as a whole! Since they loved tasting the foods associated with Passover, they showed a great interest in doing the same for this holiday. Through this mini research project, the children will gain more knowledge about a new topic, build their vocabulary and learn ways in which to find more specific information and details about an unknown subject. We are excited to begin our unit on Haifa next week. Shabbat Shalom! Mari & Aaliyah Reminders:
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Pre-K Room 8Mari Greifer Archives
March 2020
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