Hello Purple Room Families!

This week we learned about Parshat Lech Lecha, in which Avraham and Sarah followed Hashem and traveled to the land of Israel. This prompted discussions of travel, and how travel in the desert long ago would be different from travel now. Avraham and Sarah would have to pack all their food and water and belongings on camels and donkeys, and pitch tents to sleep in at night! We also continued our learning about insects, and began work on our own insects to hang in our classroom.

Fine Motor Learning

 

 

We learned about how Hashem promised Avraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and created our own starry skies using tiny glass beads and buttons. Fine motor skills are such an important part of pre-K learning. Developing the “pincer grip” (grasping with thumb and forefinger) and the small muscles in the palm of the hand help build dexterity for handwriting, shoe tying, buttoning, and all the other life skills small children must learn. 

 

 

 

Other ways that we developed fine motor skills this week included play dough work and creating three dimensional art works by twisting wire. 

Jewish Learning

 

 

We had a very special treat this week-- we had the opportunity to go into the shul to help Rabbi Deitsch take out the Torah, and then look inside! We saw the actual parsha we have been learning about, and the children found Hebrew letters that they know. 

 

Learning about Avraham and Sarah’s travels to the land of Israel prompted lots of play and discovery. The children prepared food, packed up the playground cart, and hauled it around the playground as they pretended to journey through the desert. The children repeated and deepened this play over the course of the week, adding more provisions and discussion about the travel-- is the camel as big as a plane? How many people could ride on a camel?  

Science Learning

 

A dragonfly alighted right in front of us and stayed still for a long time! The children have been seeing these fascinating flyers darting past for weeks, but the chance to see one up close was truly mesmerizing. They noticed that the wings were translucent, the eyes are so big, and its mouth could move! After seeing our dragonfly and looking at others in books, we worked together to draw a diagram of a dragonfly. The children drew and labeled the parts of a dragonfly, and started gathering materials to build our own dragonfly.

Literacy Learning

 

 

The Purple Room enjoyed using a felt board this week to retell a current classroom favorite, Not a Box. The children could retell and expand on the story using felt pieces. We also stocked the library with books about insects as there is a lot of curiosity about this topic. The children learned how to mark interesting pages with sticky notes, and how to understand a diagram (no, the arrow and words are not a part of the insect itself!) In this way, they are learning how to reference books for knowledge.

We hope you are enjoying this marvelous weather, and that you have a great weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Shoshi & Morah Shaina