Grape Class: Celebrating Purim!

Documentation for the week of March 6-10, 2017

Queen Esther's Beauty Shop!

Our Dramatic Play area this week was a huge hit! The children had so much fun doing each other's hair, giving each other mani/pedi's, and dressing up. We had a lot of materials available for the children to explore, and we had a variety of dress up clothes for the first time this year (Thank you, Van Horn Family, for letting us borrow your dress up clothes!). There was a lot of negotiation that happened over the clothes, especially the dress up shoes. Ariel F. And Lucy wanted to each wear one shoe from the two pairs available. While they were in the process of switching shoes, it looked like one was just sitting on the ground by itself, and Leah decided to put it on. The three of them debated for a long time about who should get the shoe in question. Eventually, Ariel F. Was able to explain to Leah why she had a plan to wear it. A similar struggle occurred the next day when Bayla and Ariel F. Both wanted the dress up shoes. They tried to say the same phrase over again and again, louder and louder to solve the problem. Bayla said, "I had it first." Ariel F. said "But I was looking for it." They argued in this way until it was clean up time, and they had to put the shoes away. As they cleaned up, they came up with strategies to get the shoes first the next time there was free play. Bayla buried her shoe in the bottom of the dress up clothes. Ariel F. Put her shoe behind the shampoo sink. It is really hard when there are fun toys to play with and everyone wants to have a turn. We have been giving the children a chance to solve their own problems without us stepping in to assist them. Bayla and Ariel F. Could see that by arguing the way that they did, left them no time to play. Similar strategies to problem solve by repeating the same phrase over and over has been occurring in every area of play in our classroom and outside. When we allow children to try this strategy lots of times, they can realize that it doesn't work as well as other strategies.

There was so much care and attention given to the manicures and pedicures happening this week. All of the children were so focused on painting each other's nails well. It was amazing to see them work so hard while so many other things were happening around them. They were careful to be safe with the materials and speak to each other about which colors to use. It was great to see the teamwork happening at this station of play.

Similar concentration was given to the hairstyling chair. The boys and girls all worked hard to be safe with the heavy blow dryer and hair straightener while they worked gently to do each other's hair. So many great conversations happened in the dramatic play area this week about whose turn was next, which styles of work should happen and how to share materials.

Nature-Made Graggors

We did not make beautiful Graggors this year, but the children learned a lot from the ones we sent home to your tentative faces! :) We brought in a lot of empty water bottles for the children to explore sound. We took the bottles outside and allowed the children to fill them with whatever they chose to fill them with. At first the children went straight for the small rocks outside. They knew that the rocks would make a loud rattle. After that, they got creative. They added flower pedals. Bayla added water, "because it is Purim Under the Sea!" Other friends chose to add water to their Graggors too. Leah said that her Graggor was a "quiet swishy Graggor." Imie filled her water bottle all the way to the top, and realized that it actually makes less noise that way. When they brought their Graggors inside, they decorated them with permanent markers at the discovery table.

Purim Silent Auction Artwork

We worked hard to finish our silent auction art project this week, and it turned out to be a beautiful collective piece of art styled after the artist, Hockney. We hope that you bid on it at the Purim party on Sunday! It's worth every cent that you will pay, and it will look great in any of your homes!

Creating a Megillah

During literacy time this week, we worked together to draw all the pictures of the Purim story. We used the sequence of the Purim story we created last week to help us decide which pictures to draw. We worked all week to create the pictures, but when we went to put it together on Thursday, there were still some parts of the story missing so the children chose to draw the missing parts as we assembled our Megillah. Once we finished all the pictures, we taped our whole story together just like a real Megillah! You can see it hanging on the clips in the Preschool hallway!

Nosh Nosh! Hamantash!

We made hamantashen on Thursday! The children remembered the directions from our play dough hamantashen, but it was much harder to work with real dough. They had a lot of fun with the sprinkles and chocolate chips in the filling too!

Outdoor Explorations

Eliya and Hillel discovered how to use the PVC pipes to make water flow in new patterns. They put the pipes together and took them apart several times to see if they could make the water come out the very end of their pipes. It worked! It was amazing to watch their problem solving and communication skills at work to accomplish a task that was important to them. Eventually their friends joined them in their work, and they all celebrated together when they saw the water flowing out the end of the pipe.