Miss Joy's Class

Today in Miss Joy's class, Miss Samantha took us on the environmental playground. We enjoyed the warm weather. Each child in the class got a copy of the book "Hooray for Passover" by Leslie Kimmelman so we could follow along together as Miss Samantha read to us.  After that Miss Samantha hid finger puppets for our next book and the children ventured to find them. After the hunt the children sat down with the finger puppets and Miss Samantha explained how each puppet was a plague. She told the children that we are going to read the book "Let My People Go" and when we hear the plague, throw the finger puppet of that plague to her. This was very exciting and kept the children attention through the entire book. I suggest get the book "Let My People Go" by Tilda Balsley and the finger puppet plagues so you and your child could have just as much fun.

Do you know the Muffin Man?

On Shabbat we had a muffin party with Bubbe's & Zaydee's.   I came up with a muffin party because of   the muffin man nursery rhyme.  We love to cook together and share what we make.  The children like to mix the batter & they got to put sprinkles in the Kosher chocolate chip mixture.  The fun creative idea I had was to use food colored markers for the kids to doodle on the muffin wrapper and when you peal back the muffin you get to see the beautiful design the child makes.  We ended up having a great turn out of Bubbe's & Zaydee's and everyone loved the muffins as we sang the song!!!

Kachol Class

This week we are learning tongue twisters. We put a green paper Pickled Peppers in a pickle barrel for "Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickle Peppers" . We then read "A tisket, A Tasket, A Green and Yellow Basket".  We took paper plates, cut them in 1/2 and stapled the two plates together. Next we covered them in green and yellow paper. Then we drew a picture and wrote a note to put in the basket for a loved one. The children really enjoyed this art project.

Spring in a Bottle

Today in outdoor gardening we are welcoming spring by making spring bottles. All you need is a coke bottle or water bottle. Have your child look around the garden/house to try to find items that remind them of spring to put into the bottle. For example, we are putting bird seed, split peas, colorful buttons, colorful sand and much more. The children will love making their own decision in what to put in the bottle. It’s a great art craft to welcome spring.

Visiting Jacksonville

Every year we take a car load of teachers to visit another school in Fl.- either Tampa, Orlando or Jacksonville.  Its a great way for teachers to get to see what another Jewish preschool looks like and how they do what they do. This year was no exception.  We went to visit Jacksonville Jewish Center and my dear friend, Shereen Canady- the director.  We got to spend the day going in and out of classes and meeting with different teachers. We came back with some wonderful ideas like a wall of showcased student artwork in the main hallway, a beautiful garden (with very different plants and flower beds than ours) and a wonderful Judaics classroom. It is always a visit worth effort of substitutes and schedule juggling to compare and share ideas and very validating for our teachers that we are on the right track doing a fine job. Great day!!!

Katom happenings

The two infant rooms at B'nai Israel have been busy.  We have been doing our sensory stations, which include foil, foam, cotton, popsicle sticks and denim.
Major has been babbling up a storm this week.  Katelyn and Julie are trying their best to stay on their feet while  learning to walk.  Isaac and Joel are extremely active.  They are learning to say fun words like "cookie" and each others names.  Elle is growing like a weed and Lantana is discovering new foods.

Adom Room

 

We have had a great day talking about friendship in the one’s room. We had our Judaic’s teacher, Miss. Samantha, come to our class today with many great ideas. We held hands and sang songs including our favorite, The Move We Get Together. We learned one can always lend a hand to another and that we share with our friends. Each child got to choose different color paper and markers to get his or her hands traced. We showed the difference in hand sizes and the class thought it was silly to clap with paper hands. After cutting out all the little hands, we made a circle with the hand cut outs to remind us that we are all friends. We will be putting the hands up in our room to remind us about friendship.

Hickory Dickory Dock

We have been learning about nursery rhymes and the children love the Hickory Dickory Dock one.  I thought it would be fun for the children to make their own clocks so they can learn about time and number recognition and share them with their families.  The children loved placing the numbers in the correct position and I put the long and short arrows with a fascinor on them for the children to be able to spin them.  I am always looking for new and exciting hands on learning for the children to learn their numbers!

Skyping with Queens

For those of you who may not know Skype is a form of internet video chat with audio, it works much like a telephone excecpt for the fact you can see who you are talking to. With that being said, Bnai Israel is Skype buddies with another Jewish Day School in Queens, NYC. We Skype with them on a monthly basis and discuss many different things. We talk about the transportation differences in NYC from Gainesville. The kids learned that many people take the train or bus to work instead of driving a car. The kids also learned that the weather is much colder in NYC than in Gainesville. We also talk about the Jewish holidays and how they are celebrating them. That way we can share ideas on what each school is doing and plans to do. We are so happy to have a partner school to do this with and we look forward to expanding our Skype contacts.

Kachol Class

Getting ready for Purim- We made groggers out of coffee creamer bottles - We covered the bottles with white glue and glued different color tissue paper on it. Then we waited until it was dry. We then we glued foam Purim shapes on it. Once we were done decorating our grogger we put beads inside as the noise maker.

Judaics

Its Purim week, so in Judaics we decided to make our own groggers. All you need is two paper plates, a stapler, beans, pasta, or buttons (anything you would like to fill your grogger with). First, have your child decorate the grogger any way they want. Then fill the plate up with beans, pasta and buttons for the noise. The last step is to staple the two plates together. Once the grogger is finished you can play a fun game, when your child hears the name Haman they have to shake the grogger really loud, but when they hear the name Esther and Mordecai they have to be quiet. The children love this game! 

Purim at the Day School

Well you can tell its Purim at the Day School.  We kicked off our week of celebration with our Spring fundraiser, Purim on the Playground. It included a  picnic dinner, open house and fun outdoors. Next for this entire week we are dressing in different costumes each day.  IN addition, we have tried something else new this year- we are holding CAMP SHUSHAN.  For M-W-F we have thrown out our routine and created camp activities for the day. Today we had a treasure hunt ending with a treat in my office.  We also had a great sing along and dance a long with Miss Samantha and Miss Jill. Today was silly hat day and the teachers also dressed up with costume partners.  Miss Rose and Miss Joy were Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, Miss Shari and Miss Joy were pirates, the Infant teachers were Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore and Miss Brigette and Miss Marceline were me and Miss Carole. Oops I forget Miss Samantha and Miss Jill were Sonny and Cher! Fun times- Chag Purim!!!!

This year is already flying by. Our infants classes are growing up faster and faster by the day . In the Katom classes we have been enjoying working on our "walking" skills and our older boys are trying to figure out how to make it out the doors quicker. :) On Wednesday, our babies surely enjoyed watching the firefighters showing their work gear and fire trucks! This coming week we will be working on making fun art activities for celebrating Purim. (Parents don't forget to dress your children up for the week.)We are also hoping for the weather to work with us so we can explore the playground more.