B”H

 

Dear Parents,

 

Caring and Empathy

Welcome Baby Dolls! This week seven new baby dolls were welcomed into the Yellow Room. The Yellow Room has adopted a new Conscious Discipline program, Baby Doll Circle Time, which encourages caring and empathy (see CJP Facebook Group).  Each dad or mom (aka Yellow Room Friend) gave their baby doll a bracha (blessing).

 

Parsha

In this week’s Parsha the Yellow Room Friends learned how Yaakov gave brachot (blessings) to his 12 sons at the end of his very long life.

Thank you, Yellow Room Parents, for sending in your personal bracha (blessing) for your child. They were read to each child and will be put into a binder for the children to look at any time.

Yaakov also gave a bracha to his grandsons, Yosef’s sons, Menashe and Efraim. But Yaakov did a very strange thing: instead of putting his right hand on the elder grandson Menashe’s head, he crossed his hands and put his right hand on Efraim, the younger grandson’s head, and his left hand on Menashe, the older grandson’s head. This was because Yaakov knew that in the future a descendant would be born from Efraim who would lead the Jewish People into Eretz Yisrael (Israel): Yehoshua.

 

Song:

(TTTO: If You’re Happy and You Know It)

 

When Yaakov blessed Yosef’s sons,

He crossed his hands.

When Yaakov blessed Yosef’s sons,

He crossed his hands.

He put his right hand on Efraim

And his left hand on Menashe.

Then he blessed Yosef’ sons,

He crossed his hands.

The bracha Yaakov gave his grandsons is often recited by Jewish children before sleep:

Song:

https://www.chabad.org/519469

This Tefilah (prayer) from Yaakov, at night is said:
By all Jewish children, before going to bed
To Ephraim and Menasheh, this bracha, Yaakov gave
"May the malach (angel) watch over you, for me he did save
In the name of my fathers, Avrohom and Yitzchok too
May Hashem’s bracha, forever be with you

Hamalach hagoel osi mikol ra
Y’vorech es han’orim, vikorei bahem sh’mee
V’sheim avosai, Avrohom v’Yitzchok
V’yidgu larov b’kerev haaretz

Yaakov gave each of his 12 sons a different bracha because each son is different and has specific needs. The Yellow Room discussed how each child is different. The Kindergarten Friends heard the brachos from the parents being read for each child. Each child received a different bracha because each person is different and unique.

 

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline

 

Strawberry Shortcake!

The children in the Yellow Room are bustling with excitement as they prepare for shopping and making strawberry shortcake.  As the children continue to play shopping and family, create strawberry shortcakes, play cook for family, create homes and kitchens from materials they build on foundational skills for continued education and adult life. 

Through play the children are developing confidence and peer play competence as they problem solve.  There is only one shopping cart and we all want it. Or, I want to play with you and build a kitchen, but the second child wants to build a new house.  Conflict comes up in life throughout childhood and adulthood and learning the skills to resolve conflict and move forward is a skill that will help children through homework, peer disagreements, careers and even family time.  The competence they develop in peer relationships is known to support their motivation to learn, task persistence, autonomy and prosocial behavior.  

Children’s ability to link memory to new involvements is another area that is blossoming in the Yellow Room.  The children have been enjoying books, especially Cook-a-Doodle Doo and  It’s Not a Stick.  Over the last several weeks the children’s development of making connections has been blooming as they notice connections between things they have done in class in the past and new things they are doing or reading about.  While writing the foods that his friends like for breakfast, Naveed noticed that Ronan likes cookies.  He called Morah Devora over and stated “Morah, 'cookie' is like the Cook-a-Doodle Doo book. They both have 'cook' in them." Leanna was also making connections as she read the It’s Not a Stick book and stated, “Look Morah, it’s the Starry Night painting in this book just like we painted.”   As children’s abilities to make connections between concepts develop, they increase their ability to think about the many things they are learning in a more complex way.

Relating Math and Literacy to the Parsha

This week in the Parsha the children learned with Morah Perline about Yaakov’s children and how each is different than the other.  The children explored many differences in themselves and their friends.  They especially enjoyed looking at how each of their families are different.  The children graphed “How many are in your immediate family?”  The children each decided who makes a family.  Some children said their grandparents were part of their family.  Some children said their pets were part of their family.  And, one decided their niece was part of their family. 

 

The children have a new friend joining the Yellow Room in January and they were curious about her, so they made predictions of who they thought might be in her family.  They decided she has a mom, a dad, a sister, a brother, and herself (5 in her family).  The children also decided to write and send a note to our new friend, Shyli, to ask her how many people are in her family.  They also asked what she likes for breakfast  (as we are started to graph foods we eat and explore food choices). 

 The graph provides for more math and literacy learning as it allows the children to learn to read a graph and determine who has the “most” in their family, who has the “least”, and who has five, or nine in their family.  Ask your child about who they feel is part of your family, and enjoy their thoughts and reasoning.

The children’s exploration of how they are the same or different from their friends provided these ideas:

Same                   

Mae:       We’re all human.                       

Leanna:  We all have hearts, hair. And we all go to school.

Angie:    We all have brains to think,  bones,  and lips.   We all learn Torah, and have blood.  We all like to draw.

Jacob:    We can all be patient. We all bench. We all learn aleph bais.

Naveed: We all have eyes and noses.

Leah:     We all have ears.

The children are still considering the things that are different about each of them.  Mae stated we are different because we have different feelings. Exploring difference provides children a respect for themselves and others as they realize they do not have to be exactly like their friends.

Over winter break please have your children join you in an exploration of items and people in the environment that are different.

Enjoy your winter break.

Have a wonderful, restful Shabbos!

Morah Devora

 

 

 

 

 B”H

Dear Families,

The past weeks have been so busy with Chanukah exploration that the Yellow Room hardly had time to find out what happened in the weekly Parsha with Yaakov and his 12 sons. But this week the Yellow Room excitedly discovered that Yosef had become a ruler in Mitzrayim (Egypt) and the brothers had to go to Mitzrayim to purchase food when their food ran out. The brothers did not realize that Yosef was the ruler and when Yosef insisted that Binyomin, the youngest brother, remain in Mitzrayim Yehuda spoke up and protested. The Yellow Room discussed what they would do if they saw someone who bothered someone else. What would they do?

What if your friend got to a swing before you? What would you do?
Mae: I would say, “Can I have a turn when you’re done?”
Jacob: I would get on another swing.
Angie: I would say, “Please can I have a turn. If he says no, I would play somewhere else.”

Song:
https://www.chabad.org/519467

Yehudah said to Yosef, "I’m stronger it is so
Please take me for a slave, and let Binyamin go."
The brothers knew what they had done to Yosef was wrong
Yosef sent his servants out, and in a voice so strong, said

Chorus: "I am Yosef, is my father still alive?
Ani Yosef, haod avi chai?"

"Don’t be afraid," the brothers were told
"It was Hashem’s will that I was sold
Go and tell our father, to Hashem I am true
Take food and wagons, but bring Yaakov back with you."

Chorus:

Serach played on her kinor, Yosef is alive
Yaakov was so happy when the wagons did arrive
When Yaakov saw Yosef after so many years
They hugged one another and cried happy tears
Chorus: ‘‘I am Yosef, my father is alive."
‘‘I am Yosef, my father is alive."


In a very dramatic move Yosef reveals to his brothers his true identity. He then discovers that his father Yaakov is still alive. After 22 years the news of Yosef’s whereabouts could be too shocking since Yaakov was much older by then. With great sensitivity, the news of Yosef was broken gently to Yaakov through song: Serach, Yaakov’s granddaughter, sang a song delivering this wonderful news. The Yellow Room discussed how we may want to be careful how we deliver news to our grandparents.

How do you speak to your grandparents?
Jacob: My grandparents live very far. I talk to them about Washington. My grandfather is 100.
Mae: I speak to them gently because they are old. You know how old my grandfather is? 69.
Leah: My grandfather is the same as what Mae says.
Angie: I speak very gently because my grandpa is very old.

Later, Yaakov and his sons and their families move to Goshen in Mitzrayim. They bring all their belongings with them.

Yaakov and his family used wagons and donkeys to move their belongings to Mitzrayim. Which do you think is better?
Naveed: Wagons because everything fits except for a giant.
Leanna: Donkeys are better because they’re nice and fluffy and I love animals.

Shabbat Shalom!
Morah Perline

 

Dear Families,

We made our grocery list for the strawberry shortcake recipe.

    The children have continued their interest in cooking a strawberry shortcake. After sending the initial request, to Morah Tara for the children to be able to take a field trip to the store to purchase the ingredients, the children received a letter back from Morah Tara saying they could go.  She stated they must do four things: 1. Get a permission slip signed by parents (watch for them they will be sent out when we get back from break), 2.  Make a grocery list 3. Collect money to pay 4. Walk to the store and shop.  

 The children worked together to make their shopping list.  All children helped to determine the ingredient list, write the words, and work together sounding out the words to determine the spelling.  They helped one another when they were stuck.  When the children had their shopping list complete, we had to determine the next part of Morah Tara’s list.  We needed money.  We asked the children how they thought we might get money to shop with and this is what they said:  

Mae: You can get money from the bank. (I asked her if we go to the bank and ask them to give us money to go shopping, will the bank just give us the money.  She said “no”.  

Leah: from a piggy bank. 

Naveed: I can bring my wallet in with me, but I ran out of dollars. I also have a credit card.  

Leanna: I have a piggy bank at home and I have two $5 bills that I got from the tooth fairy that I can give you guys.   

We decided to continue thinking of more ideas.  We also figured out we needed to determine how much money the items cost so we know how much money we need.  All the children will look for two items each (the list will go home Friday) from our list when they go to the store with Moms and Dads.  They will write down the cost for those items so we can determine how much items cost, and how much money we need. 

Leanna writes sugar with support from Leah. Leah writes butter with the support of her peers.  The children help one another determine how to spell the ingredients using their phonetic sounds. Jacob also writes down items.

  Our exploration of shopping and cooking did not end there.  We needed to explore shopping so the children set up a store in the classroom (and a bank to get money from their bank accounts).  The children asked Morah Ora to borrow her shopping cart.  She kindly agreed so the store was ready for business.  Each child shared the shopping cart and had an opportunity to shop.  Mae bought soooo many groceries.  When asked why she was buying so many groceries she stated she was shopping for Shabbat.  She continued and stated she had 100 people coming over!  The children shopped from the many fruits, meats, vegetables, and flowers we have in the classroom.  The children expanded the grocery play into cooking for Shabbos and setting the table for guests.   

We also focused on what we needed in order to understand how to read a recipe ingredient list. The children continued their fraction work, which they started before Thanksgiving.  They learned about fractions so that when they cook they can read, and understand, how much of an ingredient they will need.  After playing with the fractions we looked at the measuring cups to determine which cup was which size.  The children are enjoying their play with fractions.

         We will continue our shopping, recipe reading, and cooking play so we are ready for shopping and cooking in January.

 Naveed  (and all the children) measures how many  gems fit in  ⅓, ¼, and ½ cup measuring cups.  He then counts the gems to see which size cup has the most gems.

 

                      

        

The Yellow Room’s exploration of cooking strawberry shortcake extended to a review of the food groups. As we discussed the different food groups and how they help/support our bodies the children showed the strong muscles they gain from eating protein.      

 

    Expanding on Early Literacy

Besides working on math and literacy related to reading recipes and shopping, the children explored rhyming and predicting what a book or page in a book is about based on the pictures.  We explored the book “Do you know which ones will grow?”  The value of rhyming is that it is fun, it supports children's phonemic awareness and fluency development.  

The children discussed and patiently waited for their turn to share their ideas of what the book was about and then what they thought the book was going to say something grew into.  It took some children a few moments to figure out the hidden object.  The children learned that the object had to rhyme with the last item on the previous page. As the children learned the pattern (a kitten grows and becomes a cat and a cap grows and becomes a -rhymes with cat) they became better at predicting the second word of the pair. Playing rhyming games with your child is a fun way to bring preschool lessons home.    

Good Shabbos!

Morah Devora

 

 B”H

 

Dear Parents,

 

This week has been packed with so much Chanukah exploration. The Yellow Room has been experimenting with dark and light. They used the overhead projector to create shadows and images onto the wall. Utilizing different shapes, they were able to create a menorah, a dreidel and other shapes they chose to create.

 

The Yellow Room Chefs peeled potatoes and davened in the kitchen one day as their latkes sizzled on the stove. They sang the Latke song to encourage the sizzling. Then, when it was quiet, they heard the sizzling sound quite clearly. After tasting the latkes (gluten free) most of them decided they were the best they ever tasted. They realized that the latkes were made of potatoes which grow in the adomo ground. Hence the Ho’adomo brocho.

 

Song:

TTTO: https://youtu.be/vfWAo0MZHIQ

Latkeleh latkeleh hop hop hop

Jump right into my pot.

Fry and sizzle merrily for you’re the one

I’ll eat you see!

 

The Yellow Room had a Chanukah treat every day; one day it was chocolate Chanukah Gelt, another day Dreidel waffles (gluten free) and another day latkes. If it wasn’t a Chanukah food it was a Chanukah craft table which was open all week for the Artisans to create their own dreidels, menorah, latke and frying pan creations.

 

The Yellow Room Scientists experimented with oil and water to see if they would mix. They dropped oil into colored water and then placed a paper on it to see what would happen. They were interested to see how science could turn into art.

 

The Yellow Room Friends brought home song books with lots of Chanukah songs that they sang in class. Every day after davening they would (pretend) ‘light’ the menorah and recite the brochos. They have become proficient in putting in the candles and lighting: one is done from the right and the other from the left.

 

Song:

Ner Rishon     https://www.chabad.org/454341

Ner Rishon 
Ner Sheni 
Ner Shelishi 
Ner Revii 
Ner Chamishi 
Ner Shishi 
Ner Shevii 
Ner Shemini

 

We put them in starting from the right 
we add one more on every night 
But don't forget when you start to light 
To do it from the left to right

 

The Shamash is highest it's the ner (candle) 
That lights every wick from here to there 
No other candle can compare 

To the shamash, the highest ner.

 

THANK YOU, RABBI DEITSCH!

Thank you, Rabbi Deitsch, for giving each child a dollar bill to each child for Chanukah Gelt. What a special treat!

 

Thank you, Morah Marina

Thank you to Morah Marina, the dance teacher, for visiting CJP. The Yellow Room enjoyed dancing and moving to the beat with the drumming sticks and colored scarves.

 

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah!

Morah Perline