Dear Parents,

The Purple Room is gearing up for Chanukah and counting down the days with great anticipation! 

SCIENCE

Being that we celebrate the miracle of oil on Chanukah, the Purple Room has been conducting all sorts of experiments with oil. First, they experimented with mixing oil and water. Each child proposed their own hypotheses which they know means what they think will happen and this was noted on their experiment sheet. After adding drops of colored water to their cups of oil they noticed that the oil rose to the top and it didn’t mix with the water. They drew pictures of the outcome and then wrote/drew what they learned.

The next oil experiment the Purple Room did was to see what would happen when they added salt to a jar of oil and water. Some offered the hypothesis that the salt would melt in, others thought it would explode. What a surprise they had when they saw the outcome was quite different than their hypotheses. The salt created bubbles that rose to the top and disappeared!

PARSHA 
In last week’s Parsha the Purple Room learned how Yaakov sent gifts to his brother Eisav so that Eisav would feel kindly towards him and would wish to reunite peacefully with Yaakov. 

Discussion: What kind of gifts would you send a friend who’s sad or upset? 

Mason: Give them money like tzedakah so they could buy what they want.
Zoe: Give them a toy so they could play.
Jemma: Cheer them up and give them a hug and see if they’re okay if they fell down.
Alice: Send them flowers but first ask them what they’re favorite flowers are so they love what you get them.
Tzivia: I would send them a card in the mail.
Roni: Give them a lot of love. 
Hammond: If they don’t have anything to draw with I’ll give them some of my crayons and markers and if they don’t have a water bottle I’ll give them one of mine because I have a lot of water bottles. 
Ari: Give them a hug and their favorite food.

CHANUKAH AND ART

The artist study for this month is Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985), a Jewish modernist artist associated with several major artistic styles including stained glass. Inspired by his stained glass art, the Purple Room created stunning Chanukah menorahs which they look forward to using beginning the first night of Chanukah, this Sunday night, December 22.

HELPING OTHERS

The Purple Room visited the Renaissance Senior Living Community and brought joy and smiles to the faces of the residents with songs, crafts and latkes. After singing Chanukah songs the Purple Room Friends showed the Seniors how to roller paint the dreidel canvases. The latkes were delicious but the highlight was the sweet smiles, care and consideration each child showed to the Seniors. So impressed were they that one of the seniors is planning to attend services at Chabad of East Valley.

MENORAH

The Purple Room children have been practicing setting up their menorah. They know that the candles are inserted into the menorah starting from the right but are lit starting from the left.

They have also been practicing playing dreidel with ‘Chanukah gelt’. They know the letters on the dreidel are ‘Nun’, ‘Gimmel’, ‘Hey’ and ‘Shin’ and what they stand for.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy Birthday to Mason who celebrated his 5th birthday in class this week! His Jewish Birthday will be tomorrow, on Shabbos. May he continue to give lots of nachas to his parents and family!

Have a wonderful Shabbos and a Happy Chanukah!

Morah Perline and Morah Chaya

Dear Parents,

The Thanksgiving Lunch was a smashing success and the children really enjoyed making the soup for the event. They sliced and peeled and poured and measured. They hope you enjoyed the soup which combined the idea of the lentil soup from that week’s Parsha and the pumpkin soup for the special lunch.

ART

The children have employed George Seurat’s Pointillism style of art to paint stones which they searched for and found in the CJP playground. They know that, in this week’s Parsha, Yaakov surrounded his head with 12 stones for protection from any possible wild animals while he slept. The Purple Room Artists used Q-tips, the backs of paint brushes and toothpicks to achieve different sized points (aka dots) and created unique and beautiful stones to be used for math activities.

MATH + PARSHA

In this week’s Parsha the Purple Room created patterns, an important math skill, and incorporated fine motor skills when they each created ‘Yaakov’s ladder’. Ask your child what the pattern for each ladder rung is.

Different striped and spotted sheep featured in this week’s Parsha and was a fun way to reinforce counting. 

PARSHA + SCIENCE

The Purple Room Friends now know that the prayers we say three times a day were instituted by our three fathers (aka Patriarchs): Avraham (Shacharis in the morning), Yitzchok (Mincha in the afternoon) and Yaakov (Ma’ariv in the evening).

SONG

Three Times a Day

(TTTO Three Blind Mice)

Three times a day

To Hashem we pray 

Three times a day

To Hashem we pray 

Shacharis is the morning tune

Mincha in the afternoon

Ma’ariv by the light of the moon

Three times a day.

The Purple Room Whizzes know that Yaakov traveled out of Eretz Yisrael and traveling involves direction. The directions of North, South, East and West were explored this week in conjunction with this theme and the children conducted an experiment. Looking at the world globe in the classroom, they noted that the top of the earth has a North side, the North Pole, and the bottom of earth has a south side, the South Pole. Going ‘round the earth, they explored the East and the West. They also discovered an interesting thing about magnets and direction: when they floated a magnetized needle in the water on a small piece of cork, no matter in which direction they set down the needle, it would always turn to the north, proving the magnetic center of the earth is to the north.

LITERACY

Each child works to his/her own level in Literacy through the Waseca program. The Sight Word game this week was a lot of fun with each child owning the words he/she felt comfortable and then exploring their classmate’s words.

KRIYAH (Hebrew Reading)

Jemma (after practicing Kriyah (Hebrew reading): You know which letters I like the best? Samech, Alef, Kof, Lamed, Daled.

FIELD TRIP
On Thursday, December 19th, we will be going to the Rennaisance Assisted Living Center to have a pre-Chanukah Party with the senior citizens. If you would like to drive on the trip, please let Masha know!

Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Morah Perline

Morah Chaya