Yellow Room Newsletter

10/15/21

    The Yellow Room is getting ready to build the Teva for our outdoor learning space. This week, Mike (Ronan’s dad) came and spoke to the children about the tools used for building, safety rules, and the importance of building support for a multilevel structure.  Mike told the children about using the hammer, and Jacob commented, “You hammer nails with a hammer!” Mike added that you can remove nails with the back of a hammer as well.  When hearing about the importance of support for a multilevel structure and then being told the table needs to have support built under it, Leanna proudly responded, “So it can hold the table up.”   

 

Mike spoke about the importance of safety glasses to protect your eyes when constructing something.  Leah responded, “I watched a movie about scientists and they wore those types of glasses.  Mike stated the scientists wear the safety goggles because they sometimes use chemicals and need to protect their eyes from the chemicals.

 

    Mike shared with the children that Levels were used to make sure that items do not tilt and showed them that you can see if things, like a table, are level horizontally or a piece of wood (modeling with his head) is level vertically. He showed the children how to mark a straight line with a string/chalk line.

 

 

When he showed the children the tape measure the children were very curious and wanted to measure everything. They decided that they wanted to know how long the tape measure was, then they measured the other tape measure.  A perfect opportunity for math!  The two tape measures were different lengths so the children could determine what the difference was between the two measuring tapes.  

 

                                           

   As the Teva project continues and the children begin construction, they will continue to have opportunities to use math, expand their communication skills and language knowledge, explore science, and space.  Of course they will continue to journal their ideas regarding the Teva.

 

    The Yellow Room again thanks Mike for speaking to us about the things we need to know as we get ready to build the Teva.  We also thank him for the supplies and the support in building.

 

Observing and Drawing

 

The Yellow Room has been spending time observing and drawing.  Observing and processing what they see and then transferring that thought into writing or a drawing supports the children’s development of their working memory.  They also relate what they see to items they know like lines, shapes, or images thus utilizing their long term memory.   The final product is an integration of old knowledge with new information to create the image they put on paper.

The process of observing also helps the children develop their patience and self-regulation.  Many are anxious to draw a picture of just a face, or just some lines for a plant or tree.  Asking the children to take some time and think about or talk about the shapes they see, the lines they see, and the relationship of space to lines provides them an opportunity to practice patience, slow down their process of drawing, and intentionally think about the lines and shapes they will put on their paper.

  

The process of drawing a face, a tree or a plant gives the children a chance to practice drawing all of the lines and curves they write daily when writing letters and words.   The face is a big curve like that in an “O” or “D”.  The smile is a small curve that starts a “p” or “b” curve.  The many short or long lines practice the vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines in many of the letters.  Practicing writing skills in a variety of ways helps children reinforce the muscle memory of the line formations for letter creation and strengthens their hand, arm and back muscles for writing.

    The end product of the observational drawing is a creative interpretation of what the children see: a creative piece that they feel pride in themselves for creating. They experience a sense of accomplishment as well.  Next time you are in the school, come down the hallway and see our observational drawings of plants.  See if you can determine which of the plant pictures your child drew. 

 

Featured Show and Tell: Mae

Mae shared with her classmates a doll she has at home (it was not brought to school).  She pulled from memory to tell her friends about her doll.  Mae’s classmates had the opportunity to use their imaginations and knowledge of dolls and hair to create an image in their minds of Mae’s doll.

Mae shared that her doll’s name is Miriam.  She said that her doll can wear old baby clothes that used to belong to her sister, Liran. She also said that she even fits into clothes that still fit Liran.  When asked where she got Miriam from,  Mae responded, "I got her from my mom.  She used to play with her.  I was not born yet.”  Mae let us know that she plays with Miriam in her room.  She added that her doll has hair the color of Leanna’s hair and that she believes Miriam has brown eyes.  As Mae stated that she can make a ponytail with Miriam’s hair, she modeled making a ponytail by grabbing her own hair.  She also stated she can make her legs walk.  One friend asked Mae if her doll, Miriam, does mitzvahs. What do you think?

Shabbat Shalom,
           Morah Devorah 

 

Dear Parents,

“As many as the stars and sand…” That’s the promise the Yellow Room children learned Hashem made to Avraham. Hashem promised Avraham that he would have as many descendants as the stars and sand. That’s a LOT of descendants! The Yellow Room tried to count the stars in the sky at night. For homework they looked at the sky at night and drew what they saw. They realized there are too many stars to count.

What I saw in the sky:

Ronan: I saw a planet. I saw Venus. That’s the moon. I wrote words on my picture. I saw the airplane right there.

Jacob: I drew these stars and I saw an airplane. My dad’s plane is Delta.

Leanna: There’s the moon and there’s the blue sky. I drew an airplane. First it went to Ronan. Then it went to Jacob. Then it went to me. There’s the planet Mercury.

Mae: This is my house and this is my front porch. I was drawing there. These are stars and that’s the moon and an airplane with its lights on. That’s what the two dots are.

I Love You Ritual:

(TTTO Twinkle twinkle) 

Twinkle, twinkle you’re a star

What a wonderful child you are

With bright eyes and nice round cheeks

A talented person from head to feet

Twinkle, twinkle you’re a star

What a wonderful child you are

Song:

(TTTO Twinkle twinkle)

 

Twinkle, twinkle kochavim (stars)

Shining in the shomayim (sky)

If you say Shema today

Everything will be okay

If you say Shema tonight

Everything will be alright

Twinkle, twinkle kochavim (stars)

Shining in the shomayim (sky)

 

Loose Parts

The Kindergarten Astronomers created their own sky filled with stars using loose parts on a framed felt board and creating their own patterns.

 

Kriyah

Avraham did not used to be called Avraham. At first, his name was Avram. And his wife Sarah’s name was Sarai. But after Avram and Sarai showed Hashem, by making good choices and listening to Him, Hashem took some of the letters from His own name and put them into Avram and Sarai’s name. The children used the Montessori Alef Beis letters to spell Avram and Sarai. Then they spelled one of Hashem’s names:  י – ה – ו - ה   Hashem took one Hey and put it in Avraham’s name and the other Hey into Sarai’s name. From then on they were called Avroham and Sarah.

DISCUSSION:

Have you ever moved from one place to another? What was that like?

Jacob: We went on vacation to Washington. We took Brewster. We went on a airplane Southwest. We had suitcases. We had pajamas in our suitcases. But not Brewster. He was next to me.

Mae: I used to live in Maryland and then we moved to Scottsdale and then we moved to Arizona. I was a baby in Maryland but there were too many fires there. One night I saw a lot of fire trucks. I saw no fire. I was wondering what they were doing there. There were too many storms in Scottsdale. They kept waking me up. I really like our house in Chandler. It’s blue and white. Our grandparents live close.

Leanna: I used to live in New Jersey. When we left I tried hard not to be sad. I didn’t really want to move because our house was really nice. The worst part of New Jersey was that we had tornadoes. So we moved to Arizona. I like Arizona. I like my house. We have a dog. Her name is Penny. We have a nice backyard and a warm pool.  I like my school because we live very close to here. We live only a meter.  We moved our stuff with a lot of bags. We rented a lot of bags. We had 21 bags!

Naveed: I was in California and then at nighttime we had a nighttime swim. There was a giant pool and a little Jacuzzi. In the middle of the pool there was a hole with a bit of trash in it. Then we went back home and we saw lots of boxes. We packed all our stuff in a suitcase. We needed a billion suitcases. I like the new house better. I sometimes like the old house because it had a Jacuzzi. Our new house just has a pool.

Ronan: We moved to our Nanny and Grandpa’s house just for a few days. They have a lot of toys. We only moved one bag of toys. It was easy. It was in a backpack.

Matching Stars

The Yellow Room Kriyah Experts matched the Alef Beis letters onto matching stars.

Sensory

The Yellow Room used the outdoor learning space to explore how much sand they could count from only a pinch of sand. They tried counting the grains but they said there were too many to count! And that was only from a pinch of sand!

Big Lesson of the Parsha

Avraham was told to do many things by Hashem. No matter how hard it was Avraham tried and tried and tried and did whatever Hashem told him to do. When Avraham was told to pick up and move and go wherever Hashem told him to go, he did it immediately. Even if it was hard for him he still did it. The Yellow Room discussed different things they each find difficult and are working on to make a good choice.

 

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline