B”H
Dear Parents,
This week’s Parsha teaches us many Mitzvos and the Kindergarten explored quite a few. Some mitzvos were about safety. One day, when the children came into class, the Yellow Room Friends noticed many unsafe things in the classroom: the broom was lying on the floor, some chairs were knocked over, blocks were in the way. It was a real tripping hazard. Morah almost fell! The Friends got to work making the Yellow Room Safe.
Discussions:
If there was a big hole in front of your house, what would you do to make it safe for people to walk there?
Ronan: Fill it up with rocks.
Angie: Put a bridge across.
Jacob: Stand in front of it to block people.
Mae: Put a gate around it.
Shyli: Put a sign that says we can’t go in the hole.
Leah: We should put those things that look like ice cream cones. We put them around it. Then some rope on there. Then we put a sign like Shyli said. Then we tape it.
Leanna: If people are coming and I’m going on a walk and I would get a sign and put it over the hole.
Naveed: I live in America, Scottsdale so I would get the cement truck and put some cement in there so there will be some more cement in there so it will be like a new one.
What are some things to be careful with in our kitchens?
Leah: I don’t have a fireplace.
Ronan: I don’t even have one chimney.
Naveed: When the stove is cooking, don’t touch it.
Leanna: We don’t even touch knives. Only plastic ones.
Mae: I have a fireplace by my pool and by my pool. There’s bread by the stove but not on the stove. Liran tries to get the bread.
Shyli: Maybe put a gate around the fire.
Naveed: The only part you can touch on the knife is the holder part. Only if you cut a sandwich, you can use a knife.
Ronan: Something that’s really dangerous is broken glass. It can hurt you. From a window or a car. You pick it up with a dustpan.
Angie: You sweep it up.
Shyli: We will be safe with broken glass if we put a gate around the kitchen and if you’re hungry you clean it up and put your gate in your garage.
Jacob: If there was broken glass I just put a gate around my kitchen so I won’t step on the glass. I would go in with different ways around the gate.
Leah: I put a gate too. I put a gate by one door where my kitchen is. I jump over it so it doesn’t open because Yosef always breaks glass and doesn’t get hurt and my mom always cleans it.
Another Mitzvah the Kindergarten explored: Hashem said not to mix milk and meat together. The children figured out how to read the Hebrew words for Milk (Cholov - חלב ) and Meat (Bosor - בשר) and then sorted through the foods to separate those that were milk and those that were meat. They wondered where milk comes from. Naveed said it comes from the store. Leah said her mom goes to the grocery. They weren’t able to get to a farm so they watched a video about the process of milking the cow. Ronan wondered how big a cow is. The Yellow Room Friends then learned how cheese is made. They watched this process done by machine and by hand.
Another focus of discussion this week centered around the mitzvah to make sure everyone is safe and feels safe. The Yellow Room used an idea from this week’s Parsha, Parashat Mishpatim, to create their own Mishpatim (Laws/Rules) for the Yellow Room:
Yellow Room Mishpatim
1. Ronan: We can’t touch Morah’s things.
2. Jacob: Have walking feet inside.
3. Naveed: Do not kick or hit or punch.
4. Angie: Do not push someone.
5. Leanna: Do not hurt people.
6. Jacob: Do not say unkind words.
7. Ronan: Don’t throw things at people.
8. Naveed: Don’t draw on people.
9. Shyli: Don’t kick a ball at people if you are not playing with them.
10. Naveed: Don’t do any of the bad Aseres Hadibros (Ten Commandments).
11. Jacob: Use kind words.
Song:
TTTO https://www.chabad.org/608073
All the laws, the mishpatim
That Moshe Rabbeinu brought
To us from Har Sinai
To Am Yisroel he taught
Chorus:
Na’a’seh v’nishma, was our cry
We will do and we will hear
Without asking why
When dealing with our friends
Being fair in work or play
These laws taught by Moshe
Are with us today
Midvar sheker tirchak -
Never tell a lie
To keep away from sheker
We must always try
Chorus:
Na’aseh V’nishma, was our cry
We will do and we will hear
Without asking why
Overheard
Naveed: I’m a teenager. I’m 55
~ ~ ~
Naveed: Leanna, you want to marry me? If you want to marry Davis, that’s okay.
Shabbat Shalom!
Morah Perline
Finishing up the Cook A Doodle Doo Study!
The children enjoyed the exploration of cooking strawberry shortcake. They wrote letters to people asking for help, worked on fractions so they could read the recipes, figured out which ingredients they needed and prepared the Strawberry Shortcakes. In the end the most beautiful thing was when they decided to share this special treat with their friends in the Purple Room. And, what better way to share than have as a Shabbat celebration treat.
A cooking interest transitions to:
vehicles, motion, and transportation
Mae and Ronan say, “we are making a not real school bus and it has a long light!” “It also has a sidewards engine.”
This project began as a discussion about one child’s consistent interest in trains. When the children discussed trains more they realized they all liked traveling, transportation and vehicles. Thus, the beginning of an exploration.
The children are putting on their science and creativity hats for this one. They began with an exploration of loose parts and determining what type of vehicle they wanted to make and how to make it. But, there was an additional part to this job. They had to collaborate with a partner and compromise while determining what the vehicle should be built like. Learning to work with other children helps support perspective taking which is needed as we grow older and work together.
As the children continue their exploration we discuss what makes a vehicle move. These are the ideas the children had: an engine, gas, pushing, tires, wind, pedals, paddling, a sail, a steering wheel.
We are continuing our exploration to determine what in fact makes vehicles move. We explored some movement by trying out different ideas in the outdoor learning space. The children decided that tires, a ball, bicycles, and the slide were items in the yard that could move or cause motion. To explore this, the children tried out different ideas. They pushed tires, they rolled them, they took them to the top of a hill and pushed them. They also just took their hands off the tires and noticed if at the top of the hill they still rolled down.
The children started to touch on ideas of inertia, and friction which we will continue to explore over the next couple weeks. We will also look more into engines and what makes them work and move vehicles. In looking at friction we pushed vehicles with paint coated tires on paper at different rates and notices the difference in the speed they went, but also the thickness of the lines of paint as they varied with speed.
The vehicle and motion interest is also expanding out literacy and math explorations. This week we continued to work on rhyming, which supports language and reading skills. We talked about vehicle and transportation vocabulary words, then determined words that rhyme with them. We started with boat. How many words can you think of that rhyme with boat (they don’t have to be vehicles). See how many your child remembers or can think up again. We worked with beginning and ending sounds of transportation words, and sounding out the letters in a vehicle or transportation word to strengthen our knowledge of phonemes.
Our math play involves measuring the distance we can move a car by pushing it, and adding vehicles to determine sums.
We started considering maps last week on Zoom. As our exploration of transportation continues we will revisit maps. Encourage your child to notice things along your drive to school and the turns you make along the way. Talk to your child about the route you take. As children pay attention to their surroundings and the paths they take, they increase their ability to attend to things and begin to make mental maps which can later be drawn out. Making mental representations is helpful as children advance in math and begin to write stories and comprehend books.
Jacob plays with friction holding the slide rails to slow his speed.
Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Devora
