B”H

Dear Kindergarten Parents of the Purple Room,

Kindergarten geared up for Chanukah this week in a serious way. They created their own menorah, first selecting a tile base of their choice, decorating with stickers and then creating the ‘branches’ for the eight candles with a higher ‘branch’ for the Shamash with tiles. They know the Shamash candle must be lit first and it lights the other candles. They practiced putting in the candles into their menorah from right to left and ‘lighting’ the candles from left to right.

The read many Hebrew words and learned their meanings this week in preparation for Chanukah, some of the them being neis (miracle), ner (candle) and godol (big). Kindergarten practiced numbering the candles in Ivrit (Hebrew) with this song:

Menorah Song – Ner Rishon:

(link to song: https://www.chabad.org/454341)

Ner (candle) Rishon 
Ner Sheni 
Ner Shelishi 
Ner Revii 
Ner Chamishi 
Ner Shishi 
Ner Shevii 
Ner Shemini

We put them in starting from the right 
we add one more on every night 
But don't forget when you start to light 
To do it from the left to right

The Shamash is highest it's the ner
That lights every wick from here to there 
No other candle can compare 
to the Shamash the highest ner.

They topped off their Menorah creations with creating original Chanukah wrapping paper which will go home on Friday in time for the first Chanukah lighting, this Sunday evening.

Kindergarten found ways to integrate art with reading. They combined Kriyah (Hebrew Literacy) with Chanukah by spinning the CD dreidel over their kesiva (Hebrew writing) of two letter words with a twirl of the CD dreidel, reinforcing kriyah of two letter words.

Parsha

A lesson the Kindergarten learned this week from the Parsha is to try to approach the person they may be upset with directly, to try to verbalize what they are feeling. In the Parsha, they learned how the brothers were upset when Yosef went to his father, Yaakov, to let him know about things he saw his brothers doing that appeared wrong. Instead, it might have been better to approach the brothers directly. If that hadn’t worked the second option could have been to then go to their father, Yaakov, to discuss with him.

Parsha Song:

Link: https://www.chabad.org/608041

Yosef and his brothers took care of Yaakov’s sheep
Yosef had two dreams while he was asleep
The brothers saw Yosef, in the coat Yaakov made
They remembered his dreams and they were afraid
That Hashem’s bracha would go only to him
The brothers knew there must be Twelve Sh’vatim

So they took Yosef and threw him in a pit
There were many snakes, but no water in it
They saw a wagon coming and Yehudah said
"Do not kill him, let’s sell him instead."
So down to Mitzrayim, Yosef did go
He was sold to Potiphar, a captain of Paraoh.

Please see the CJP Facebook page for pictures of the above and more!

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline

I did our first assessments of the year this week. We will repeat these assessments again in February and May. We do most of our work together as a group, so these assessments provide me the opportunity to see where I need to focus and what skills we have mastered individually. I will be discussing these assessments are parent teacher conferences with you all!

We are so excited for Chanukah! We used menorah making as a way to practice skills new and old. We were able to practice visual perception as we worked to make candles that would fit in the space given. We learned to use a ruler and measure to make candles that were a given length.

With the weather so delightful we will move some of our lessons outside. This week we did our first outside nature scavenger hunt. This gave the children an opportunity to practice the letter sounds and spelling words.

I hope your family has a Happy Chanukah!

Good Shabbos!

Morah Kristina