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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