Chag Pesach Sameach!

Documentation for the week of April 3-7, 2017

Finishing our Hagaddahs!

We continued to discuss each hagaddah page at morning meeting this week. We spoke about what each page meant and how we could portray that meaning onto paper. Once we agreed on a plan, we executed our plan at the discovery table during indoor exploration time.

On Monday the children worked on the festive meal page. They decided that they would use markers to draw, "A table and chairs and people sitting in the chairs and the food on the table especially the gefilte fish. Yummy! Ewwwww." 

On Tuesday the children worked on the Afikomen page. This was definitely remembered from last Pesach. The children were very excited about finding the Afikomen this year at their seders. They decided to use felt to create an Afikomen cover and make matzah using white paper and brown paint. They cut the felt, then glued it together. Next they cut the white paper for matzah, stuck it into the felt bag, and painted the part that was peaking out. There were a lot of steps to this page, and the children showed excellent focus in order to complete it neatly. Morah Mirele did a great job too with the extra mess (saving Morah Tara from a lot of anxiety)!

On Wednesday the children worked on the bentching page of their hagaddahs. We spoke about what it means to bentch, when we do it, and why. Leah told us that her bentcher has a white cover. Hillel told us that we are singing to Hashem. Imie told us that we are thanking Hashem for our food. When we discussed how we could put that concept onto paper, Oree said that we could draw people and food with books on the table singing. Bayla said that we could make a rectangle shape out of paper and put it on the page like a bentcher. After more conversation, the children agreed to create mini bentchers to put onto their hagaddah pages. Once they got started, they all chose to make books that were open to bentching pages instead of just showing the covers of the books. We pulled up a page inside of a bentcher on the iPad and they copied what it looked like. Ariel F. said that she couldn't see any of the letters and wondered how she could copy them. We tried to zoom in on the picture, but it was blurry. Eliya said that she could just draw scribble scrabble, but make it small scribble scrabbles like on the iPad. Ariel F. drew some scribble scrabble and some Hebrew letters. Lucy chose to draw a spiral and some Hebrew letters. Ariel S. chose to draw all scribble scrabble on her pages.

On Thursday we spoke about the part of the seder where we say Halel- we pronounce the glory of Hashem...How do we put that onto paper?! Bayla suggested that we draw Hashem. Morah Mirele asked if we know what Hashem looks like. Lucy said that we could just draw everything every where. Imie's mouth dropped and she said that that would take so long and be too hard. Hillel said that we could make a crown, because Hashem is the king! The children liked this idea a lot. We found sparkly stickers and streamers in the storage closet. Then we pulled up a picture of a crown on the iPad, and the children worked with scissors and glue to create crowns on their papers.

Pesach Sorting: A Math Game

We placed large circles at the bottom of the table with numbers relating to Pesach in some way. We had lots of pictures relating to Pesach concepts above them. The children worked to sort which concepts were grouped together and which number they corresponded to. Ariel S. and Hillel noticed that there were four glasses of wine right away. Next they recognized one of the plagues. They remembered that there were ten plagues so they started to find them and place them on the circle with the number ten. Lucy and Imie worked together later in the day to find all the items on the seder plate. Imie said, "I didn't even realize there were six foods on the seder plate!" Bayla, Leah, and Oree worked on finding all the steps to the seder. There were so many! They realized that the steps had the most pictures so they must go on the highest number: the 15 circle. This game acted as a great review of Pesach concepts as well as a great way for the children to work together in small groups. There were also the four sons and the four questions, which we spoke about more as a class on Thursday.

Learning to Recognize 11-20 using Hole Punchers

Our literacy table focused on numerical literacy this week. There was a game available for the children to use a hole puncher with number cards. They punched the number of holes in the card as the number printed on the card. This was a challenging task, but they were able to use the helper sheet on the table just like they had last week with the rice and rocks activity. The children are still learning the pattern and concepts of what makes a 1 and a 7 the number 17. They were also very capable of checking their work by counting the number of punches that they had made and counting how many more punches that they needed to make in order to get to the number on the card.

Literacy Trays

Our literacy trays this week focused on matching and creation of letters as well as Pesach. There was a magnet tray where the children matched the English capital letter magnets to the lower case letters on the tray. There was also a tray where the children matched Hebrew letter magnets to letters written on the tray. Leah, Imie, and Ariel F. were so proud of themselves when they found every single letter on the tray that they were working on!

We had three peg boards out with rubber bands and Hebrew letters. The children chose a letter and then tried to create it using the rubber bands on the peg board. Lucy worked very hard to create an Alef and Oree made a fantastic Shin!

We also had two seder plate literacy trays to work with. One had a seder plate with words in English and Hebrew where the children matched the pictures of food. The second one had a seder plate with all the foods on it, and the children matched the words to the pictures. We also had the four questions printed in Hebrew for the children to trace.

Let's Have a Seder! Dramatic Play

The children immediately noticed that our pillows were on the chairs in the dramatic play area and not in the library! They went to explore the other materials out on the table too. Imie began playing with the seder plate. Hillel, Eliya, and Ariel S. began taking turns hiding and finding the afikomen. Bayla, Oree, and Ariel F. began saying Kiddush.

Outdoor Work

We started our outdoor work, this week, by bringing water and sponges to the art wall where we painted last Friday. Hillel and Bayla squeezed the sponges full of water onto the wall. Ariel F. took bowls of water and splashed the wall. They watched the water and paint drip down the wall.

The children also became very interested in building tunnels this week. They created ships with tunnels in them, which they called "private rooms." They negotiated how much time each friend got in the private rooms and then decided to build more rooms so that they wouldn't need to take turns. They made similar choices in the construction areas in the classroom this week creating tunnels and bridges with the blocks. We will explore these concepts in greater depth when we return from Pesach break.

Pesach Fortune Tellers

On Wednesday afternoon we broke up into two groups and played with Pesach fortune tellers. They were a quiz game where each child got a turn to choose a question. On Thursday we put the fortune tellers out on the table so that the children could explore them on their own and play the game together.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

We hope that you all have a wonderful Pesach break! We also hope that you explore and enjoy the hagaddah that your child worked very hard on! We will see you again on April 19!