B”H

Dear Kindergarten Parents of the Purple Room,

Chanukah rocked in Kindergarten this week. The children were greeted each morning with lively music many felt the urge to dance to. There were spinning dreidel kids, hopping Menorah kids, all kinds of dancing expressing their joy in Chanukah. The joyous music followed them into the playground for Chanukah Outdoor Play!

The Kindergarten learned a lesson from the Hebrew word ‘Chanukah’ and how there is a hint therein as to the date of Chanukah. The Hebrew word Chanukah consists of two words: ‘chonu’ – they rested, followed by the Alef Beis letters ‘chof’ and ‘hey’ which have the Gematria (numerical value) of 25. The Jewish people rested from the oppression of the Greeks on the 25th of Kislev, which is the first day of Chanukah!  Kindergarten participated in many Gematria activities this week, learning the Gematria of all the Alef Beis letters. They integrated addition, too, utilizing Alef Beis letters and numbers.

Some Hebrew words Kindergarten learned this week were Nissim (miracles), neiros (candles)  and Maccabee.

Lots of cooking and following recipes occurred this week. The Kindergarten made their own donuts and enjoyed putting on toppings of their choice and enjoying them for morning snack. The Kindergarten also made the challah dough for the entire CJP. They are becoming quite adept at following recipes and counting, measuring, collaborating and taking turns.

Remembering their families, the Kindergarten created dreidel signs for their homes and presented it with Chanukah dreidel pop up cards to their families for Shabbat.

Song: Antiochus the Wicked King

(TTTO: Adon Olam)

Antiochus the wicked king

Did to the Jews a terrible thing

He made the holy Beis Hamikdosh unclean

And besides, he was so mean!

“That’s not fair” the Maccabees did say

And with Hashem’s help they chased Antiochus away

They found some shemen, it was a sight

Hashem made it burn for 8 days and nights.

Parsha

Even though there are so many exciting Jewish Holiday activities, the Kindergarten is keeping up to date with the Parsha of the week, this week being Parshat Mikeitz. They are presently in suspense as they wait for next week’s Parsha (Vayigash) to see if Yosef will disclose his true identity to his brothers.

Parsha Song:

https://www.chabad.org/608044

One night Paraoh had a dream
"What can it be," he did scream.
He saw seven cows all well fed
‘Then seven thin ones’, Paraoh said.

The fat cows were eaten by the lean
Paraoh thought ‘what can this mean?’
Later that night, another dream he had
He dreamed of grain, some good and bad

Yosef was taken out of jail
To explain the dreams he didn’t fail
Now Paraoh knew the meaning
Of what he was dreaming

For seven years, food you must store
Hunger will be for seven years more
Paraoh listened to everything
Then he gave Yosef his ring

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

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah!

Morah Perline

Our week started by making paintings with oil and watercolors. They turned out beautiful! This is one of my favorite art projects. We practiced making drops, not puddles and used this an opportunity to practice one to one correspondence.

This week we focused on adjectives and poems. We reviewed nouns and verbs before adding adjectives to the mix.  We practiced describing different types of nouns, like pizza and dogs. We worked hard to make books with our own poems to practice using adjectives. The drawing part of the books may seem like the fun part of literacy, but these pictures are an important part in helping the students understand that pictures help tell the story.  

We read poems together (you may have seen these come home in the backpack) and identified our sight words in the poems.

I hope your family continues to enjoy a Happy Chanukah!

Good Shabbos!

Morah Kristina