This week we found ourselves in a sticky situation. That’s right, Morah Anna took out some sticky contact paper and we walked all over it on our bare feet! This helped with our sensory awareness as well as strengthening our leg muscles, which by the way, continue to get stronger. We have grown from holding on to Morah’s entire hand to only one finger! Our steps are more stable now.

Our finger muscles got a workout as well. We worked hard to “unstick” small toys placed on the sticky paper.

We beat the heat as we went outdoors early in the morning. What could be better than feeling the morning dew on our feet? Then enjoying the grainy sand on our hands....and on our hair! As we have learned the phrase “arms up” we decided it was best to show morah how rapidly we’ve learned it- but with sand in our hands. Uh-oh .

Lastly, we created a new discovery bottle. Using only oil, food coloring, glitter, and water. We observe how the oil and water don’t mix. Next week, we will try the same method in ziploc bags which we’ll add to our collection of sensory bags.

Last, but certainly not least we’d like to thank the Elikan family for donating some wonderful books to CJP! We very much appreciate it!

Books: Beautiful Yetta
                The Wheels on the Bus
                 If Animals Kissed Goodnight

Shabbat shalom,
Morah Anna

Welcome back Ella! We surely missed having you with us last week.

These past two weeks were full of so much socialization. Not only did we enjoy morning snack and davening
with our peach friends but we also enjoyed the sun outdoors with our older peers. They love us, and we love all the attention we get from them. Some huddle around us and want to play. Some of the activities we enjoyed last week included bubble-nanza, tons and tons of bubbles . Our older friends took turns blowing bubbles as we followed and observed.  We also rode our trike around the dirt road and our feet felt refreshed on the cool moist grass.

This week, we worked on our own face magnet while we sang to “can you touch your nose...eyes..ears..mouth...tongue”. We are learning where the eyes, nose, and mouth go as we place them on a blank face.

Have you ever seen such a thing as throwing balls out of the mouth while rolling on the floor? Well we have. No, it’s not morah Anna. She wouldn’t go that far to entertain us. It’s Mr. Bucket!
Mr. Bucket rolls around while shooting colorful balls out of his mouth and we follow. There’s blue, red, green, and yellow ones too.  Admittedly though, we find that tasting the holey balls is much more exciting.

We are adding more to our “sensory collage” this week we added green rice, pink, and purple too. We love to feel the dry, grainy texture in our tiny hands.

On Thursday, we took a trip two doors down to our school library. We flipped through some books and picked out three age-appropriate books for our classroom. We have read and re-read the books we currently have in our class, so we’re looking forward to reading what we picked out.

*Parents: you’re more than welcome to bring in books from home as well. They’ll be returned at the end of the day.

Books: Good Night, Baby
               My Grandma and I
               The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Songs: “Can You Touch Your Nose”

Shabbat shalom, 

Morah Anna

Body Parts!

Bon voyage to Ella! ️
Looking forward to seeing you soon!

This week, Wednesday and Thursday we took out our water tub. We played with different sized cups as we talked about small, medium, and big cups. We poured and splashed in the soapy warm water.

We also revisited the face-naming theme from last week. We take every opportunity to go over it. When we look in the mirror, when we hold a doll, as well as when we read books. It’s funny to see the reaction when they see morah sticking out her tongue.
Two new friends joined in the fun for this activity. None other than Shani the puppet! And she brought along her best friend Etty who’s visiting this week for Purim. Etty the puppet has a raspy voice but we were able to understand her well. She is very inquisitive. She asked us where our eyes, mouth, ears, and nose are. Maddison impressed her fluffy friends by pointing at Etty’s nose and sticking her finger in Etty’s mouth when asked about the tongue. What was also impressive was Maddison following the puppets’ “conversation”  with her eyes back and forth.

This week we found veggies in our mystery box. What?! Veggies in the mystery box?! Yep, we found a felt tomatoe, felt lettuce and felt carrots. Unlike the cold, fresh veggies we find at home, these are soft, warm, and fuzzy. 

We wish our families a very happy Purim! 🤹🏻‍♂️

Shabbat shalom,
Morah Anna

“May the first birthday of your life mark the firsts of many good things to come”- unknown


CJP wants to wish our dear Maddison and Ella a very happy birthday!!! 

So many firsts we have lived. It’s so exciting to see us grow everyday, learning new things and expressing our needs and wants so well.

This week, we started learning about face parts. There are pictures of our own “eyes” “nose” “mouth” and even our “tongue” we have modified the famous song “if you’re happy and you know it” We have incorporated our new vocabulary words and we point at them as we sing.

Oh the beautiful, sunny and cool weather this week allowed us to enjoy some fun in the sun. We kicked off our shoes and felt the dry, warm sand on our bare feet. But that’s not all we enjoyed, we also enjoyed several rides around the dirt road in a big-kid trike!!! While we sang: “ here we go ‘round the big dusty road” we also got to see the beautiful plants that our older friends have planted. We saw a basil plant blooming, amongst other fresh, green plants. Our temptation to pull them out was strong but looking at them from up close sufficed.

During our frequent visits to our peach friends’ class, we have seen how much fun they have painting. Well, we had our own version of “ painting “ we invite you to come to our classroom to see our masterpiece hung on the wall. Don’t worry mommy, it’s “mess-free painting”

Our mystery box has been put away-for now. We have the discovery bottle from last week that continues to fascinate us. We use it as a rattle, we roll it and bang it on the floor. We added colorful strings to it. Good conversation piece!

To many more enjoyable years with the girls! Cheers 🥂!!!!

Books: Good Night Baby
Where is Baby’s Belly Button?
Songs: If You’re Happy and You Know It
Here We Go ‘round the Big Dusty Road

Sign language: more, milk, water, eat

Blankets, and bubbles, and sand oh my!

We were so busy learning about the different things found in our classroom this week. Building our vocabulary skills, the Morah walked us around naming the different objects in the room. Amongst our favorites is an activity panel posted on the wall. We must stand in order to play with it. There is also a new I Spy bottle in the mystery basket. In it, we see rice, strings, cotton balls, beads, and other things we talked about as we shook the bottle.

Whoever said blankets are only for sleeping? This week we went on a blanket ride all through the classroom. Our heartwarming smiles were priceless!

We took a trip to our outdoor classroom this week. We worked on strengthening our finger and hand muscles by playing in the sand pit. We talked about how it felt : rough, bumpy, squishy, and dry.  We compared it to the soft, dewy, fresh grass on the other side of the playground.

Bubbles and more bubbles!  They are an excellent way to help develop visual skills. Because bubbles are both eye catching and slow moving,they are a great way to help learn to use the eyes and develop these skills. We took our bubble wand outside for this activity. Although they didn’t reach out for the bubbles , they did follow the slow-moving bubbles with their eyes.  They handed me the bubble wand when I would purposely put it down.
Amazing !   

Next week we will expand our vocabulary skills by learning the names of our face parts. 

Books: Our First Shabbat

Songs: Can You Walk with Me

Sign language (continued from previous weeks):  milk, water, eat, more

Shabbat Shalom! 

Morah Anna 

Balancing Act

“Kick the can down the road” they say. But to us, it has a different meaning. 

There is no time for putting off learning to walk. This week we worked hard on those muscles . As Morah kicked a can full of beads, we were encouraged to follow it by walking towards it (with assistance) as we approached it, morah kicked it again. Till we got tired and sat down. 

One important step when learning to walk is to get used to standing up. For that reason we spent a portion of our time standing.  Some sensory bags have been taped to the table to encourage standing. This should help them feel comfortable to take those first steps as they’ll already be used to standing. 

We are also working on balancing. The time that they’re able to stand without holding on to furniture (or me) is increasing. We've been exploring lots of new sensory experiences as well, please check the facebook group for pictures!

Books: If I Were a Poodle

Songs: 

This is the way we walk, walk, walk

Can you walk with me

Shabbat shalom,

Morah Anna

Trains, Letters and a Mystery box!

All aboard! 🚂 🚂 🚂

What a memorable week we just had. We took a train ride during the amazing events offered on Grandparents Day. We heard the train go “choo choo” as well as the bell ringing as we boarded for our fun journey. We got to taste some of the fruit offered in the fruit stand. We also held a couple of heavy rocks at the  rock painting station.  They were big (to our little hands) heavy, rough, porous rocks.
Thank you grandpa David for joining us in our adventure.

Magnets are so much fun. We have a set of magnetic alphabet in the class. We have started to hear the sounds of the letters and of course their names. We may not fully understand it yet but it’s setting early letter awareness for when we get older. We like to put the letters on the trays. It takes some effort for our small fingers to remove them though.  It helps with strengthening our muscles in our tiny chubby fingers.

What did the mystery box surprise us with this week? In it we found three little rubber frogs. Squishy and soft, we squeezed them and banged them on the floor.

Our hard work on strengthening our leg muscles is proving to be so worth it! It is evident that they are stronger. The time that we stand holding on to furniture is ever-increasing. Games like “bouncy-bouncy-on-the-floor” is one of our faves. We are also encouraged to stand on our feet by having our snack placed on the table. With assistance we eat it while standing. It’s usually one puff or two.

 I invite parents to bring in their child’s favorite books so we can share them in class. It brings familiarity from home. This week, we enjoyed Ella’s favorite Hebrew book. Thank you Ella for sharing it with us.

Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Anna

Tu B'svhat is coming!

We wish a hearty refuah shlaima to our dear Ella. We hope you can join us next week. We’d also like to welcome Madison back, after a week long absence. We missed  you soooo much!

With Tu B'shvat around the corner, this week we focused on nature. We are working on our own small tree in class. The tree trunk makes a crinkling sound which is super exciting for us to touch. Next week we’ll include natural leaves to make it look more real.

In our sensory box this week you will find a variety of fall leaves as well as twigs. That’s not the only place where we found leaves and twigs though. During our visit to our sweet Peach Friends we discovered what a real tree bark feels like. It’s rough, patchy, and scaly with lots of small crevices. As we touched it we noticed parts of it crumbled in our soft small hands. We got to hold twigs too. While there, we also tried to do puzzles. Our friend Gavin, the pro,  was there to assist as he told the morah the colors of each piece of the puzzle. Great learning experience from our peers .

This week, we explored the natural world outdoors. Our outside classroom is brimming with rich sensory materials. With so much to see and touch it was an amazing place to learn about plants and grass. Both dry and green grass. We got to feel the moist grass on our hands. The variety of plants outside is amazing. But what caught our attention the most was the beautiful plant with the colorful, pink flowers. Being outdoors provided a perfect opportunity for a meaningful conversation about what we were seeing, touching, and hearing.
We heard birds chirping outside, loud airplanes flying up in the sky, and the older children playing and screaming joyfully.

We continue to work on strengthening our legs. One fun game we play is “where is morah” her head pops up from either above the furniture or below. We can’t see her without having to go up and down looking for where her voice is coming from.

We are only getting better at communicating! From pointing to things to imitating sounds and words to full blown gibberish. It all comes natural at 11 months. A great part of our day is spent being read to and singing silly songs with movement. Soon we’ll be dancing along to those fun tunes we hear in the classroom.

Shani the puppet came this week to read us a book. Silly Shani likes to nibble our toes and hands. She mainly does it when we pull her soft, long, yellow yarn hair.
 Parents: I highly recommend using a puppet when reading. It makes reading a much funner experience. Give it a name, personality, (Shani is silly and talks in a high pitch voice) she loves to nibble little toes and hands. Give it a voice of its own!

Lastly, please send in a water bottle/sippy cup. Time and weather permitting, I’d like to bring the girls to our outside classroom more often. Perhaps we can enjoy our lunch outdoors.

Shabbat Shalom!
Morah Anna

Exploring Outdoors

Here at CJP, we’re always thinking of ways to make the most out of a child’s playtime. We think of it as more than just toy time. Playtime should always be meaningful and involve people, objects, and/or movement.

That is just what we did this week.
Playing this week involved blowing bubbles while enjoying the fresh air. We listened to and sang a variety of songs. Our favorite in the morning is “boker tov”

We got to “splish-splash “ with soapy water and a sponge! Squeezing out the soapy water was so much fun. 

We got creative while working on our fine motor skills. Morah made balls of different sizes with the moldable foam. We squished it, flattened it and examined every bit of the foam. We noticed it was sticky, soft, and it also crumbled into pieces. 

Thank goodness for the nice warm weather outside. This week, we got to explore the outdoors. Ella hadn’t taken her socks off all day until we went outside! She kicked her tiny bare feet on the fresh, cool grass. Then proceeded to crawl around and examine the dried leaves on the ground. Crunchy, dried, brown leaves attracted her more than the fresh green leaves. 

In the mystery box this week, we were pleasantly surprised to find a bag full of hard, crunchy pieces of pasta. We explored everything else that was in the box: from a soft, cuddly bear to a cold, squishy bag of gel. 

In the upcoming weeks, we will incorporate some Hebrew words into our daily routine. Feel free to send a list of the words you’d like your precious daughters to learn in class. 

We missed Madison in school this week and can't wait for her to return on Tuesday! We hope you are feeling better!

Shabbat Shalom! 

Morah Anna 

Books: Peek-a-Boo Baby

                 Splish Splash! 

Songs: Friends Friends 1,2,3

                 Boker Tov

Sign language:  more, milk, water, eat

Cruising, standing, and lots of new textures!

We’d like to give a big WELCOME to Ella Rozendorn!! 👏 👏 👏 She transitioned very well into our classroom and we love having you join us every day!

Wow! What a busy week we had, new faces and new adventures! We spent the week cruising, scooting, and  pulling up as we hold on to furniture. The morah has been challenging us by providing opportunities to cruise around. Our favorite was the rolling tubes. Morah would roll them and we’d follow the rolling tube. Another favorite was the balls of different textures and sizes. We love chasing the balls in the room.

Our pincer grasp is only getting better. We tried to pull out different straws inserted into a box. We got to chew on them as well.

Oh the soft gooey feeling of the coconut flour mixed with water was an amazing project we did this week. It got a bit messy, but the messier, the merrier! Morah talked about the dry warm powder. After we added water, it turned into wet, lumpy, cold texture. Now that was a party to our hands.

Our visits to the Peach room are always fun. This week, we got to see two small turtles. Morah Lindsey gave us pieces of lettuce and we got to feed them!

As we cruised around the Peach room, we found a big pool full of some colorful balls. There were red ones, blue ones, yellow, orange , and green ones. The most fun part was throwing them out and seeing where they rolled to.

In our surprise box this week, we found a bag with noodles in it. We took them out and played with them in a bin. 

We love using the instruments in class. We added our special sound to the song “Friends, Friends, 1,2,3”  Maddie chose the maracas, while Ella picked the tambourine. As with everything else, the morah models how to use them.  This activity turned into a totally different one. As we emptied out the instrument bucket and filled it up again we learned about “in/out”. 

We hope the weather is warmer next week, so we can hang out and learn about the environment outside.

Lastly, please note that we take every opportunity that comes to introduce new language. We use a lot of descriptive words with emotions to explain what we are doing, seeing, touching, hearing , and tasting. As we may already know, doing so aids in forming stronger language and conversational skills in the years ahead.

Shabbat Shalom!
Morah Anna

Getting Stronger!

Happy New Year! Welcome back, it’s so nice to have Maddie back with us!

This week we worked on strengthening her legs. Madison has been getting stronger and stronger and she was practicing her standing and walking with lots of assistance! I’ve noticed that her legs are stronger than last time I attempted this. She’ll be walking in no time!! 

We added a new activity to our davening routine. We used our maracas to add sounds to our songs. We continued to work on putting that coin into the pushka. Maddie already knows what to do when given a coin and the pushka. What a smart girl!

Shani the puppet joined us for snack this week. Maddie attempts to feed Shani by putting the spoon in her mouth. What a mitzvah girl! Right after lunch, Maddie played peek-a-boo with Shani. She looks around to see where Shani went. This activity is not only fun to play but also teaches “object permanence”.

Brrrrr the cold weather is upon us, and this week we incorporated a “snow” sensory activity . We put cold shaving cream and food coloring drops in a bag. Maddie enjoyed mixing all the colors in the bag and feeling the cold mush. It was fun to see her poking and squishing the bag. As we already know, sensory play has many benefits. At this age, it’s especially important to work on her fine motor development.
When we give more opportunities for children to use their hands, they will fine tune the skills needed to manipulate smaller objects. We will add a new sensory bag each week. At the end, we will have a “quilt” collection of all our sensory bags.

Our outside play activity this week was blowing bubbles. The wind, however would either pop the bubbles before Maddie could get to them or they would drift off too quickly. Madison would follow the bubbles with her eyes. A special thanks to Morah Jac for being here on Thursday.  She took Maddie to the outside classroom AKA: the playground. Maddie had the opportunity to play with the older children, play in the sand, and she even got to ride a trike! In the upcoming weeks, we will join them for more fun learning experiences.

Our mystery box just keeps getting more interesting each week. This time, we added two items to our mystery box: a white fluffy bunny and a finger clapper! Maddie kept coming back to the basket to dump all the things out. She kept morah busy filling it up again!

BOOKS: Touch and Sparkle Pets
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
SIGN LANGUAGE: more, milk, banana
SONGS: pat-a-cake

Thank you, parents, for your continued feedback and suggestions. Our main goal is for Madison to have the best care and learning experience here at CJP.

Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Anna

Welcome Morah Anna!

It’s been an amazing week at CJP! Maddie did great transitioning to a new morah. Here are some snapshots of what we’ve done in the Yellow Room:
I
n “Maddie’s words” :

The theme this week was Chanukah. I listened to a variety of Chanukah songs. I very much enjoy “clapping” to the different tunes! Picking up from where Morah Jac left off, we continued to work on the vocabulary words: ma ma, da da. I love to feel the movement of the lips as the words are spoken. The sign  language: this week is: “more”

Auditory:
During daily activities, morah tells me about what we’re doing and waits for my response. Usually in the form of smiles or sounds. Morah Anna says: “Part of language skill development is to imitate sounds and gestures we see and hear. Maddie is vocal and loves to hear me imitate her sounds! It encourages her efforts to communicate.”

Songs Morah sang to me this week:
Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel. I love seeing the big Dreidel spin!

Visual:
We saw various pictures in books, pointing to and talking about each picture .
I was mesmerized by the bright blue lights morah brought to the classroom. I was intrigued by this new exciting item and decided to crawl over and see for myself what it was that was shining so beautifully and bright! I touched , pulled and tried to taste but morah stopped me from tasting it.
Oh how I love to see faces! I love to see and feel as well. This week morah showed me the “nose” as she touched mine. Then she let me climb on her lap to touch her nose! She also taught me about the mouth. Mmmm-mouth
The book she read me made more sense after that!  

Motor skills:
Some skills we worked on this week included: exploratory cruising. Morah says that the best way to learn about our environment is to crawl and explore by touching, feeling, sucking (on safe , clean things, of course) and pulling/ pushing. Dropping the block tower was interesting . I loved to see morah stack them back up only so I would drop it all over again! Also, I made an attempt to climb on the slide this week. I moved my way around it. With morah’s help, I was able to do it!
Waving and clapping was also part of our activities. We love to clap to the song: Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel as well as other Chanukah tunes.
Turning the pages on books is a favorite while morah is reading.
Books we read this week included:
1. My First Chanukah
2. Chanukah
3. Baby Faces

Social/Language skills:
As mentioned above, we’re working on the words: Ma ma, da da. I love to see the lip movement as those words are spoken. I also love to feel the movement with my own hands!
Peekaboo brings tons of smiles to my face. I love this game. It’s best when said with tons of enthusiasm! Morah is teaching me to blow kisses. Very soon I will be blowing kisses to mama and dada when I say good-bye!

It is such a pleasure to be part of baby Maddie’s learning adventures. I’m super excited and looking forward to spending the next couple months learning with Maddie❤️.

P.s. I always appreciate suggestions and/or advice as to better serve Maddie’s needs.

Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Anna

Chanukah is coming!

L'hitraot/להתראות Yellow Room . With sorrow I bid farewell to my beautiful Yellow classroom and one of the most wonderful students I have had the pleasure to work with. Thank you Elikan Family for entrusting me with your precious daughter. 

 This week was eventful and fun filled. 

On Tuesday Madison and I began getting ready for Chanukah!  We hung decorations and made fun sensory decor as well to bring a hands on joy of Chanukah into the classroom. Madison enjoyed the tape menorah (thanks to Morah Masha for the idea) when 1st putting the tape on the floor Madison had no interest. However she discovered that she could also pull and pick the take up as well as lay it down. 

 We also began integrating Chanukah themed books into morning davening and afternoon circle time. Madison's attention and interest in these books are so impressive. She enjoys stories and books so much. 

  We also explored different dreidels! A wooden one and two different plastic types; one that is clear and one is blue. We even took the clear one outside to play!

  On Wednesday morning we joined the Peach Room . Madison had so much fun playing with friends and on her own in the classroom. There were many new toys to discover. We also ate snack at the table with our friends. Then we davened; this was interesting to watch how differently Madison adjusted to the room and a routine she was unfamiliar with. She did strikingly well. Every so often she would check in with me either just by looking up at me, babbling to me or coming over for a moment. This was a great step for her and a joy to watch her interacting with children closer to her age. 

 Thursday morning once again we joined the Peach Room.  Madison and Leah played so nicely together. Leah helped Madison and shared with her. At davening time Madison was very involved. She showed us her hand motions at the correct times for songs like twinkle twinkle and our brachas for washing hands. 

 

There was also many musical instruments and singing which Maddie enjoyed  emensly. She also shows a great connection with Morah Ora.

I will be missing her bright smiling face.

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Jac