Dear Kindergarten Parents of the Purple Room,

Literacy

Komatz Pey says ‘poh’, patach Ayin says ‘ah’. Literacy is integrated into every activity, craft and game.

Continuing the theme of transportation from last week, Kindergarten followed directions for how to make an airplane and afterwards decorated them with combinations of Hebrew letters with nekudos (vowels). It is suspected that many flights were cancelled this week at Sky Harbor so that the Kindergarten fleet of Komatz-Patach-Kriyah (Reading) planes could safely land their aircraft in the CJP airport. 

Creating Goop was such Sensory fun especially when used to create Hebrew letter and Nekuda combinations.

Song: (link to tune: https://www.chabad.org/603248)

Three Malochim (Angels)

From North to South, from East to West
Avrohom’s ohel (tent) was open to guests
Three malochim (angels) were sent
Each to do something different

A son you will have, Sara was told
She laughed and said, "I’m too old,"
The next malach came to destroy S’dom
The third came to heal Avrohom

Chorus:

Avrohom ran to the malochim
To be machnis orchim (welcome guests). 2x

From North to South, from East to West, Avraham’s tent was always open to guests. Kindergarten experimented with a toothpick compass and found that it always made its way to point North no matter which direction it was pointing to when it was placed. They learned that the earth’s magnetic field will always pull the compass to the North direction.

Parsha Discussions:

What are some of the things you’ve done to help somebody who is sick?

Jonah: “Sing ‘Refuah Shelaima’ to them.”

Vella: “Read them a book. In a book one of the persons was sick and a boy brought them flowers and read them a story.”

Shimmy: “If they want a toy, just give it to them.”

Nosson: “A candy. But only for after.”

Shimmy: “A vitamin.”

Vella: “I have vitamins every single night. I have two vitamins every single night. A probiotic and I don’t know.”

Jonah: “Give them medicine. Only when they’re sick.”

Vella: “Give them a toy. But not yours because I’ll touch it and get sick.”

The Kindergarten were perfect hosts: they created an invitation for the Blue Room to invite them to join Kindergarten for a snack in the Kindergarten ohel (tent) and served them freshly cut oranges and offered them the best seats in the tent. They truly fulfilled the mitzvah of hachnosas orchim with generous hearts and much care and consideration of their guests’ needs.

This week’s Parsha teaches the valuable lesson of being Thankful to Hashem. The Kindergarten have been creating many pages in their Thankful to Hashem book. You are welcome to come take a look.

The children learned about the brochos we say before we eat a food to thank Hashem for the food they are about to eat in addition to thanking Hashem after we have eaten. Playing ‘Set the Visitor’s Tray’ and brochos Lotto were only some of the brochos games the Kindergarten students enjoyed this week.

Thank you!

Kindergarten presented a personalized thank you card to Mr. Hendsell (father of Ronan in the Blue Room) who has helped our playground be kept in such wonderful condition.

Kriyah (Reading) Homework

This has been the first complete week the Kindergarten has received homework and the students are trying hard to remember that the Kriyah binder (Reading binder) must live in their backpacks and may only come out for reading time, then must be returned immediately to their backpacks. Their reading is really astounding and doing so well in Kriyah. High five to them all!

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline

From Morah Kristina:

This week the students got to pick what we were studying meaning every day had a different theme. It was so much fun!

Monday we started with Vella’s pick. She wanted to study math. We learned about ten frames and played a memory game matching ten frame to the correct number. We also learned about number racks and made our own to use in class for addition practice.

Tuesday was Jonah’s pick and we studied words. We learned about rhyming words and played a memory game where we matched the CVC word to the correct rhyming CVC word. We also played a round of sight word bingo.

Wednesday we studied Ben’s topic of oceans.  We learned about the 3 levels of the ocean and the differences in those levels. We made our own levels with water and food coloring in jars. After the children all got a chance to try to match the colors.  We also made an art project of the 3 levels and labeled them.

Thursday was Nosson’s day. He wanted to learn about art. We learned about realistic, pointillism, and abstract art. We looked at an example of all the types of art. We looked at A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Seurat for our pointillism and talked abut why it took over 2 years to finish. We examined the picture with a magnifying glass to see the dots. We looked at Kadinsky’s Sqaures with Concentric Circles to discuss modern art. We tried our hand at making all three kinds of art.

For Friday Shimmy picked butterflies. Our lessons will focus on the butterfly life cycle and making our own life cycle. We will talk about symmetry and match cards of butterfly wings together. After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar our craft will be a caterpillar and butterfly.

Good Shabbos!

Morah Kristina

Dear Kindergarten Parents of the Purple Room,

The Kindergarten Readers are proud to announce the adoption of another nekuda (vowel): patach! They now know how to blend letters with komatz (oh) and patach (ah).

Kriyah (Hebrew reading) was integrated into Parsha this week through reading the Parsha words: lech (go), Eretz C’na’an (the land of Canaan), Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) and kochavim (stars). Even though the children haven’t learned all the nekudos yet they are able to read many words through sounding out the letters.

The Kindergarten Readers searched and found different Alef Beis letters that make the same sound and installed them in matching kochavim. They discovered that there are even three letters with the same sound! They are Samech, Sin and Sof!

Sensory writing: Practicing combining letters with nekudos was super fun this week when writing them in shaving cream.

Fine Motor Coordination: The Kindergarten Readers worked with wire this week and created a combination of a letter of their choice combined with the komatz vowel. Come see their work displayed proudly in the classroom. They worked independently and used their muscles to cut the wire with special wire cutters.

One focus of this week’s Parsha was on the bracha (blessing) Avraham received from Hashem when he was promised descendants as many as the stars in the sky and the sand of the sea. In Dramatic Play the children dressed up as Avraham and Sarah. They followed the ‘cloud’ and copied the leader without question just as Avraham followed the cloud of Hashem. (Please see CJP Fb page. To try to understand how great the bracha was that Hashem promised Avraham, the children created telescopes to take home and peer through at night and try to count the stars. As well, they tried to count the grains of sand from the playground starting with only a few pinches they glued. Too many to count!

Song: (link to tune: https://www.chabad.org/603243)

A Small Boy Of Three
When Avrom was a small boy of three
He looked at the stars and the sea
He thought the Creator was in the sky
The sun or the moon so high

But after each one in its time did set
He knew there was someone greater yet
Then he understood, and was filled with love
He knew Hashem Echod was above

Parsha Discussions:

What’s the first question you ask when your dad or mom says, “Come on, let’s go?”

Shimmy: Are we going into a deep tunnel?

Nosson: Why do we have to go?

Jonah: Where are we going right now?

Ben: Why?

Vella: I would just go.

What questions did Avram ask Hashem? None. He just followed Hashem’s cloud.

Avram was so careful not to allow his sheep to eat grass that belonged to others. What can we learn from this?
Ben: Our dogs don’t know mitzvas.

Shimmy: Not to steal toys.

Vella: Just buy a dog or a cat and put a thing (muzzle) on them.

Nosson: Not steal.

Jonah: Buy the same toy as you like.

The children know that they shine a special light into the world all unique to themselves. After reinforcing coordination and fine motor skills, cutting a star shape, the Kindergarten Kochavim wrote and/or drew about their own special light they shine onto our world.

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline

This week we reviewed the water cycle. My plans to make a hanging art project was turned into water cycle hats by the children. Building on our lessons about the water cycle, kindergarten learned about types of clouds this week. We practiced making clouds with shaving cream and poly-fil. For the children it seemed like a fun and messy way to learn about clouds, but we were also practicing following directions and writing out letters. The creativity in making a nimbus was cloud was so fun to watch!

We made our own abacus this week. During the process we talked about patterns and practiced counting out items. We also practiced identifying which amount is greater than, less than, or equal to using dominoes. This also allowed us to put our dominoes in orders of least to greatest and vice versa. Dominoes are a great way for us to talk about doubles!

Our story this week was about a sad cat. This story will come home today with your child. We practiced reading the story taking turns and in choral reading. We used the words from the story to make our sentences and practice thinking about punctuation at the end of a sentence. We learned that a period is for a statement, a question mark is for a question and an exclamation point is for excitement. We also learned this week that a sentence always starts with a capital letter. This week I also started assessing students on reading ability. I will be working with each student every Wednesday on independent reading at their level.

This will be our final week working on our city with boxes. The imagination and creativity is amazing to watch.

Next week we will add sight words to our daily work. Our sight words next week will be we, you, he and she.

Good Shabbos!
Morah Kristina

Dear Kindergarten Parents of the Purple Room,

This has been a milestone week for the Kindergarteners and their Hebrew Literacy has jumped to a new level. They learned the first vowel, Komatz, which says ‘uh’. “Komatz Alef uh.” The Komatz takes the open mouth position and closes it. Ask your Kindergartener to show you how. The Kindergarten Readers have attached the Komatz under every Alef Beis letter to combine letter and vowel and then read them together. In fact, because this week’s Parsha of Noach discusses water and lots of it, the Kindergarten Readers fished in a large container filled with water for Alef Beis letter seashells and attached the Komatz to the shells. Kriyah is so much fun! (Please see the CJP Facebook page.)

Parshat Noach song (here’s the link: https://www.chabad.org/603210)

The people watched Noach while he hammered aw nay
He worked on the teivah [ark] night and day
Hashem told him to do it, so people would ask
"What are you building, It’s a hard task."

Noach explained that teshuvah [mend your ways] you must do
There are many bad things around us, it’s true
Hashem wants to destroy the world in which we live
Only through teshuvah, will Hashem forgive

The people didn’t listen, they didn’t understand
Then down came the rain throughout the land
Forty days and nights the mabul [flood] came down
But Noach and his family did not drown!

Kindergarten discussed making choices, making good choices and those that are kind to others. To that end, the Kindergarten read a sign that has been hung in pride of place in their Home Center which reads ‘Ahavas Yisroel’ (loving another as you love yourself) as a reminder to make choices founded on this principle, a basic principle of our Torah. Kindergarten is proud to be able to read this sign and sound out the letters.

The Kindergarteners created their own teiva (ark) separating the people, food, animals and rubbish on the same floors (1st, 2nd and 3rd) as Noach did. (Please see the CJP Facebook page.) The Kindergarten Parsha Experts learned about the rainbow this week and prepared rainbow colored dough for the Preschool to create rainbow Challahs. Yum!

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline

From Morah Kristina:

The timing of the big puddle on the playground was perfect for our lessons on sink or float! We started the week talking about what a prediction is and making predictions about which items would sink or float. We learned the word buoyancy and tried making boats with corks, wax paper and foil to experiment with weight and buoyancy. We also learned about Archimedes and water displacement, and the water cycle. We read a few stories this week about the water cycle. We practiced identifying  real pictures of precipitation, run off, infiltration, accumulation, transpiration, evaporation and condensation. We used yarn and cotton balls to illustrate the water cycle. The students did a great job!

Our class learned the difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers and practiced by talking about the seven days of creation. We played a matching game for the ordinal number and what was created. We also sorted animals that live on land, air and water. We played memory requiring the students to match up different animals that live in the same place. We practiced counting by tens and counting by tens starting at random numbers.

Our story this week was about Sam and fish at the pond. This story will come home today with your child. We practiced reading the story taking turns and in choral reading. We also completed a book project where we illustrated the story. We used the words from the story to make our sentences and introduced the concept of punctuation at the end of a sentence. We learned that a period is for a statement, a question mark is for a question and an exclamation point is for excitement.

We will close out the week reading Roxaboxen again building a city with boxes and learning about directions and maps. We will also talk about what is important to have in a city.

Next week we will add sight words to our daily work. Our sight words next week will be the, are, see and like. I believe in spiraling the lessons we work on in class. Next week, we will continue to talk about cardinal and ordinal numbers, counting by ten, the water cycle and maps and directions.

Good Shabbos!
Morah Kristina

Dear Kindergarten Parents of the Purple Room,

The Kindergarteners absorbed the holiness and excitement of the many Jewish Holidays of Tishrei. They enjoyed taking out their instruments to accompany the many Yom Tov songs they learned and insisted they be recorded for their parents to see. (Please see the CJP Facebook page).

Literacy has been integrated in the exploration of all the Jewish Holidays. Each holiday has its collection of vocabulary that the children decoded, increasing their fluency and recognition of letters in both Alef Beis and ABC. They took great pride in being able to independently sound out the many words they wrote in their Machzorim (High Holiday prayer books) for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Sukkos followed hot on the heels of Yom Kippur but the Kindergarten Builders lost no time in building a Sukkah themselves. The Kindergarteners used the Alef Beis letters and blocks to discover the secret of the Hebrew word ‘Sukkah’. Looking at the very letters of the Hebrew word ‘Sukkah’ explains what constitutes a kosher Sukkah– the first letter, samech with its four sides, tells of four walls; the second letter ‘kaf’ with its three sides, tells of three walls; and the last letter ‘hey’ allows for two and a bit walls.

The Kindergarten Builders then had a planning session to discuss how best to build their Sukkah, from deciding who would stand where, who would hold what, where to get the schach from to cutting the schach and putting it on the Sukkah themselves. They learned that a kosher Sukkah must have the walls built first before the schach is put on. The Kindergarten Builders completed their Sukkah with decorations for the walls. The Kindergarteners created their own original Sukkah decorations that that enhanced any Sukkah including CJP’s Sukkah! (Please see the CJP Facebook page).

The Kindergarteners got straight into the swing of things right after Simchat Torah learning about very first Parsha of the Torah – Parsha Beraishis. They learned how Hashem created the world and what He created on each day. They learned that even though Hashem didn’t need any time at all to create the world he chose to create it in six days through speech. Seeing how powerful speech can be taught the children how careful we must be when we use words.

They have been singing the ‘Creation’ Song (see this link for the tune https://youtu.be/w5qBnlKFQFs) and created a ‘Creation Dial’:

On Yom Rishon [Day 1] there was light
Hashem created day and night.
On Yom Sheini [Day 2] from the Torah we know
The shamayim [heaven] showed.

On Yom Sh'lishi [Day 3] the earth and seas
Flowers, grass and all fruit trees
On Yom R'vee'ee [Day 4], moon stars and sun
To bring light for everyone

And on Yom Chamishi [Day 5]
Birds that fly and fish of the sea.
On Yom Shishi [Day 6], Hashem did create
Animals, Adam and his mate.

Yom Sh'vee'ee [Day 7], Hashem's day of rest
Shabbos Kodesh, we love best.
Hashem made the world and to show it's true
The Mitzvos of Shabbos we do.

The Kindergarteners will be stepping up the Kriyah [Hebrew reading] program and, being that they are the oldest class, will begin with Kriyah homework every night. They are very excited to be so ‘grown up’ to be getting homework! Beginning next week each child will be assigned daily reading pages to be done each night for homework, signed by a parent and returned to school the next day. Stay tuned for more details!

Shabbat Shalom!
Morah Perline

This week in Kindergarten we focused on Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words. We made words using different manipulatives and sounded them out to identify if they were real words or nonsense words. We also practiced identifying a consonant and a vowel.

We practiced adding sums up to 12 using dominoes. We took turns adding our dots and matching to the correct number. We practiced matching a specific number of items with a memory game where we matched the cardinal number to the amount of fall leaves. This game also helped us practice counting up from ten.

Talking about Parsha Bereishis we learned about cardinal and ordinal numbers. We talked about the seasons and the season of fall. We practiced color matching and a discussed how a color can have different hues. We learned about different types of land and water. We also learned about the parts of a tree and made our own fall tree to label.

As a class we love to build! We read a book this week called Roxaboxen and next week we will be building our own city. The class loves to be read too. When we read a book we discuss if it is fiction or non-fiction, who are the main characters and what we think will happen next. 

Morah Kristina