News for the week of 3-10-08

We had a great week planning for Purim and experiencing all the great things that come with Adar and spring. The foggy day on Tuesday really gave us some great brainstorming ideas. We first took a walk through the fog and let them experience it first-hand. They thought it was so cool! The kids had great questions and comments about the fog, we then used their curiosity to create some beautiful art and writing. I asked them to tell me how they would “represent” fog if they were doing artwork based on it. They told me all the materials they needed, which included tissues, paper, paint, fabric, and “see-through stuff”.
I gathered all the materials and brought them back and they quickly got to work. I told them part of creating something is thinking about it first. What do you want your final project to portray? It was wonderful to watch, the got their materials and made a plan and then finally glued the materials to the boards. I then asked them open-ended questions about their work and attached their quotes to the work. It was an amazing process and really was so meaningful to them, because it was something they experienced first hand. We then wrote about it and they got so creative! It is so nice to have the time to dedicate to this kind of work. I am able to incorporate all of the Kindergarten skills while letting them work on something personal to them.
The kids wrote wonderfully about Purim and what it means to them, they’re starting to make stories with multiple sentences. They then drew pictures about their one favorite part, and we graphed them. They decided how to group the pictures in order to graph them.
We continued with centers that focused on skills such as, time, opposites, writing sentences, story order and creating sentences with separate words. The kids worked hard and enjoyed our added Purim fun too, making hamentashen, creating masks and decorating our room!

With the season’s starting to change and our spring unit starting, I started talking to the kids about sun safety this week. We have outside time EVERYDAY unless it’s raining. We talked a little about how to be safe in the sun and warm weather. One way is to wear a hat, not only to keep you from getting sunburn, but to keep your skin safe and to keep your body cooler. Please send a sun hat with your child to wear outside. Our playground is shaded but they’re not always under the canopies. It’s important to get them into the habit of practicing sun safety early!!

Dear parents,
This week we immersed ourselves in Purim. I told the story with the help of my Purim spoon puppets. The heroine, beautiful queen Ester fighting to save her people against mean and wicked man, a silly king and a wise Jewish uncle all living in a royal palace… Are these pieces of fairy tale? The children were fascinated and brain stormed ideas how to help queen Ester to solve the problem since she was not allowed to go before the king unless she was asked to. I liked Gabi’s idea, she said that Ester should create a problem so the king will come to her.
We pretended to be kings and queens, sang songs, played games with Purim symbols learned the movement for the song La kovah sheli shalosh pinot (my hat has three corners) and danced the dance of Latzan Katan (little clown). The children came up with the movements for this dance so ask them to show it to you.
The children are preparing little puppet theatre so they could act out their own Purim story.

Vocabulary

Queen - Malkah
King - Melech
Mask- masechah
Grogger- (noisemaker) Rahshan
Gift basket – Mishloach manot
Hamantashan—Ozen Haman.

Have a great weekend
Morah Leah