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

 

Hello Purple Room Families,

It’s been so wonderful to have our first full week in a while! We are settling into our classroom routines, and enjoying having the time to follow student interests and develop ideas and paths of inquiry. 

 

We have been spending a lot of time outdoors, and the children are fascinated by the creatures we see in our outdoor learning space. There is a lot of interest in dragonflies, butterflies, lizards, and spiders. We have been observing and reading about these neighbors of ours, and next week we will be doing some science and art projects to learn more about them. 

Jewish Learning

We learned in Parshat Breishit about how Hashem created the world and rested on Shabbat. These conversations led to many discussions about the different animals and bugs in the world. Did Hashem make mosquitos? Why did He make bugs that bite us? Does anything eat mosquitos? These conversations have led to a new class routine of reading about a different student-chosen animal each day during snack time. 

 

We learned about how Noach built his ark, and have been building a lot of our own arks. When building, we discuss the attributes of the shapes we use, and how shapes can be composed from others shapes (such as two squares making a rectangle.) 

We learned about how Hashem made birds and fish on the fifth day, and we made our own birds and fish with play dough and loose parts. 

Math Learning

 

When we learned about Noach taking pairs of animals on the ark, this sparked a conversation about what a pair is. We learned a song about doubling numbers, and worked with tiny animals to make pairs and find out what happens when you double numbers.

 

Some of the best learning is unplanned, and develops in conversation with students. A conversation with a student about how tall he is led to measuring with blocks. The Morah gave the student a box of number cards to label how tall he was, which sparked an interest in laying out other number cards in order and counting how many blocks he needed for each. After he counted each number he balanced and walked down the line of blocks. Working with a Morah, the student combined measurement, counting and quantities, numeral recognition, and gross motor activity.

Literacy Learning

 

 

We used snap pieces and shaving cream to practice letter formation! 

A student who is ready to write, works on shared writing with a Morah.

We are also working on letter recognition and matching sounds to letters.

Dramatic Play

 

A few boxes added to the Dramatic Play Center led to so much imaginative play! These chicks are getting ready to hatch from their eggs.

 

Dramatic Play is not just happening in our classroom Dramatice Play Center! The whole class chose to participate as Morah Shaina and other dragon hunters snuck up on some dragons hiding in a cave. Watch out! The dragons are awake!

We hope you have a restful Shabbat. See you next week!

Love,

Morah Shoshi and Morah Shaina

Sukkot Learning

The Purple Room had so much fun learning about Sukkot. We ate snack and lunches in the sukkah, making the special bracha for enjoying the sukkah. We davened in the sukkah, and took our play lulav and etrog to the sukkah too!

 

We built a tiny sukkah in our dramatic play center in the classroom. The children made pretend meals, sang songs, and played in the tiny sukkah. 

 

There was a lot of interest in sukkah building. The children also built their own sukkot out of blocks and loose parts.

And, of course, we did plenty of other learning! Many students are working on letter recognition, which we focus on through songs, games, and manipulatives like this giant floor puzzle.

Another important aspect of early literacy is letter formation. Children this age are still building the fine motor skills needed to write with a pen or pencil. There are many other ways to learn how to form letters, such as using playdough, wikistixs, or sets of lines and curves such as these below.

Students work together to put number cards in order. Fingers are a very useful early math tool! We sing a lot of songs that require counting or adding and subtracting with fingers. This helps students connect the number names to the quantities.

We made outlines of classmates with tape! This invited cooperation, and led to marvelous loose parts play and math learning. We decorated the tape people, measured them, and counted how many rocks or buttons we needed to create different features.

 

We have spent so much time outdoors now that the weather is cooling off! It is finally cool enough to play with the outdoor building blocks. These amazing materials let children build structures that are taller than themselves!