Grape Class

Dear Purple Room Families,

Mishenichnas Adar, marbim b'simcha! When the month of Adar starts, we increase our joy! The Purple Room has been joyously exploring the Adar holiday of Purim. Next week we will celebrate on Wednesday. Don’t forget to come in costume! And please consult the list below to see what food to bring for our mishloach manot exchange. Please bring 11 sets/bags of the following items:

Shepherd: Veggie Straws

Jonny: Applesauce

Yehonathan: Granola Bars

Rylan: Clementines

Natan: Mini Peppers

Ella: Mini Carrots

Benny: Original Pringles

Daniel: Pretzels

Abigail: Bananas

Carmel: That's It Fruit Bars

Harvey: Tree Top Apple Juice Boxes

We also welcomed a new friend this week! We are so glad to have you with us, Benny!

Jewish Learning: Purim

We continue to tell and retell the story of Purim. The Purple Room is very intrigued by Queen Esther’s bravery, and every time we tell the story the children want to discuss how King Achashverosh never made his own choices, he just went along with whatever someone else told him. Mordechai and Esther did make their own choices, even if it was hard. The idea of making your own choices or following someone else is very relevant to four year olds, who are building their sense of independence. When we tell the story, each child wants to share a time when he or she made a good choice even though it was hard. It is wonderful to hear them connecting personally to the stories of Tanach (Jewish Bible).

Math and Science Learning: The Grogger Experiment!

For Purim, we are making groggers (noisemakers). We did a sound experiment this week as we designed our groggers. The Morahs showed the children three containers, one with one bean, one with five beans, and one full of beans. Which one do we think will make the most noise? Almost all of the children thought the one that was full would make the most noise. We graphed and counted our predictions, and then did the experiment. The children were fascinated to hear that the full one made almost NO noise! We had a rich conversation about why that happened and how it would affect our grogger design.

Some of our noticings:

Daniel: “It’s zero loud!”

Shepherd: “The beans are stuck. They can’t make noise.”

Harvey: “Yeah, they need some room. If they can’t move they can’t make noise.”

Ella: “If we pour some beans out it will make more noise.”

Natan: “One hundred beans is too much beans.”

Jonny: “One bean is not even loud either. You need medium beans.”

Abigail: “When I make my grogger I will not fill it up.”

Rylan: “Five beans is a little loud.”

Carmel: “We could also use marbles inside to make noise.”

Art Learning: Making Groggers

We asked the Purple Room what art materials they wanted to use to decorate their groggers. Connecting back to our art exploration last week, they voted to use paint and glue together. We set out materials for the students to explore how paint and glue can combine. Some chose to make very textured art with a lot of glue, while others enjoyed combining many colors. We also discovered that paper plates make a good foundation for this art– much thicker than paper! We will be filling the plates with beans to finish our groggers before Purim.

Fine Motor Learning: Hamentaschen and Playdough

We have been practicing making hamentaschen (three-cornered cookies) for Purim. The children have to roll, cut, and pinch the dough to turn a circle into a triangle. This takes a lot of fine motor skills, as well as learning to follow multi-step directions!

The interest in hamentaschen dough led to curiosity about what kinds of play dough work best for shaping the cookies. We have a cookbook of different play dough recipes, and the children have enjoyed picking and trying new recipes this week. A salt dough worked well for rolling out hamentaschen. We also make a dough from hair gel (!) that has a great texture, and we tried a “cloud dough” which had a fascinating, fluffy texture.

Gel was so fun in the sensory bin! We found we could write letters in the gel.