Continuing to Learn about Pesach

Documentation for the week of March 27-31, 2017

Continuing Our Hagaddah Work

We started the week by working on a very challenging page of our Hagaddah: the Passover Story. Morah Mirele worked with the children to tell the story on their papers. They decided to separate the story into boxes and then fill in each box with one picture. 

We also worked on another hand washing page. This time the children chose to paint a washing cup using water color paints. Each set of children chose a washing cup picture from the iPad, and completed an observational painting. 

Next we worked on the page that was about making a bracha over matzah. The children chose to draw a picture of themselves holding matzah for this page. Morah Tara took a picture of each of them in the morning, and they looked at it on the iPad later to draw it on their pages. 

We also made the page that shows Maror: bitter herbs. The children chose to use gray paint for this page. We used the iPad again, to look at pictures of maror and use the paint to create a picture.

At the bottom of each page, the children wrote the step in Hebrew. Their ability to concentrate in a busy classroom is truly phenomenal. It is clear that they are invested in writing their letters clearly and accurately. 

A Surprise Visitor on the Playground!

We were playing outside on Wednesday morning, and we heard a loud sound! The children ran to the gate when they saw the blue garbage truck coming! They were fascinated by its work. They spoke out loud about each step the truck and truck driver took to move the dumpster up and over itself to empty the trash. When it was finished, the children raced to the other end of the playground to watch it drive away. The truck driver even honked the horn as it left! It was such a wonderful reminder at how easily children find magical experiences in the everyday world. It was so fun to watch!

Building like the Jewish Slaves (Sorta!)

There were small bricks, popsicle sticks and salty play dough on the table to do some experiential learning this week. The children were shown one picture of Egyptian pyramids and another picture of bricks being built using mortar and a trowel. The children used the play dough to build walls. Some were in circles, some were in pyramids, and some were straight up and down. They also began using the materials to create work from their own imagination. Imie built an airplane. Ariel F. built ice cream cones.

Literacy Trays Relating to Pesach

In addition to our Aleph Bais trays and our number recognition trays, we had Pesach literacy trays this week! The children looked at a seder plate, and then tried to match pictures cards to the words on the tray. They used the English letters and the Hebrew letters for clues by matching the first letter sound to the first letter of the words on the seder plate.

Reaching Our Goal!

Despite working with rocks and gems for several weeks now, we haven't reached our goal in a long time! The morahs have been working with the children on the idea of setting a reasonable, achievable goal. On Thursday the children set their goal at 90 gems and 0 rocks, and we finally did it! Morah Mirele took a glow stick (sort of) into the bathroom, turned off the lights and played music! The children sang along and danced for a few minutes. Afterwards, we sat in our Parsha circle and reflected about how it feels to reach our goal. The children were able to articulate their feelings of excitement, frustration, and sadness about meeting versus not meeting the goals that they set.