Room 8 Parents, Shana Tova to all the families of Room 8! We have had a wonderful week filled with talk of the New Year and all of the celebrations that the children took part in last week. We introduced the next holiday, which occurs 10 days after Rosh Hashanah. Also known as the holiest day of the year, Room 8 had a long discussion about Yom Kippur. Last week, we completed our incredible Rosh Hashanah cards and sent them off to our extended family members. We wanted the children to have a visual of exactly where the letters were going in terms of on the world map. The children helped us pin each address to its exact location on the wall map. This is just the start of our “world” theme in Room 8. Throughout the year, we will discuss many topics that relate back to the bigger picture of the world/geography such as animals, vacations, fruit, trees and so much more. Take a look at our map in Room 8 to get a full view of where all of the letters were sent, and stay tuned for our map to be filled with many more pictures and objects! Although we discussed the idea of saying sorry and forgiveness last year, we revisited these same themes to reinforce these importance life lessons. Last year, we focused on how we can act better towards our friends and family in the upcoming year. For instance, Ayla told the class that she does not share with her brother and she can work on sharing with him more. This year, we took a different and deeper approach to explaining the importance of Yom Kippur. We opened up this conversation by reading The Hardest Word: A Yom Kippur Story by Jacqueline Jules. We wanted to introduce the significance of the words, “I’m Sorry” and “Forgiveness,” so that the children could further understand why they need to act “better” in the New Year. This book showed the importance of saying “sorry.” It explained to the children that you do not only say, “I’m sorry,” when you physically hurt someone, but it is important to say these words when you feel that you did the wrong thing, whether that is not following expectations, physically harming someone, or verbally hurting someone’s feelings. The words “I’m sorry” and concept of apologizing is very tricky for 4 years olds to comprehend. When asking the children what they though the hardest word of the book could be, they came up with all sorts of ideas. Benjamin thought the hardest word was “vanilla.” Neda thought it was “apple,” and Mason thought it was “Torah or Thank you.” Instead of trying to explain the exact meaning of “sorry,” we emphasized the importance of being kind to others and talking things out with their friends when things don’t go their way. We want the children to understand that we take responsibility for our mistakes instead of covering them up or blaming someone else. We would love for you to ask your child how they can be respectful to a friend or sibling this year. In addition, please read our director, Jen’s, newsletter this week, as it reinforces the difficulty our children have in understanding the loose term, “I’m sorry.” She also touches on how to reflect on forgiveness with your 4 year old for a healthy start to the New Year. As a continuation of last week’s Share Day item, “Something Sour,” we tried all of the sour items that the children brought in. The kids loved trying all of these items! They loved some of them so much that they even requested it for snack. For instance, they loved the pickles, Sour Patch Kids, and the pomegranate seeds. On the other hand, not of all of our friends loved these sour items. Owen thought the pomegranate seeds were WAY too sour! Next week, we will bring in the theme of comparing and contrasting with some of our sour items including a pickle and cucumber and fresh lemon and dried lemon. We can’t wait to see all of the new adjectives the children come up with to describe the similarities and differences. We hope you all have an easy fast. Shana Tova and Shabbat Shalom! Reminders:
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Pre-K Room 8Mari Greifer Archives
March 2020
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