Dear Parents,

Art + Shabbos

What a wonderful week we had last week culminating in a delightful Shabbat program at CJP! The children created most original Shabbos boards, Kiddush cups and, for the Havdala ceremony at the end of Shabbos, a B’somim ball. The B’somim ball smelled so nice and pushing each clove into the Styrofoam helped strengthen little fingers. The Shabbos board was created in several sessions as the children added layer upon layer to create texture. 

Parsha + Science

In last week’s and this week’s Parsha the Purple Room were so happy to hear that the enslaved Jewish People were finally to be set free. They marveled how HaShem rescued them from the cruelty of the Mitzriyim (Egyptians). The Purple Room explored the 10 Makos (Plagues) that the Mitzriyim were punished with. Based on the first Makah (plague) where the water turned to blood, the Purple Room explored water density. They each offered their own hypothesis as to which is more dense and therefore heavier: cold water or hot water? After this was recorded they watched as two jars were filled with cold (colored blue) and hot water (colored red), placed one on top of the other and observed the results. They observed that the cold water flowed down into the hot and the water turned purple but when the hot was placed on top of the cold water, it did not mix. After recording their observation, they then noted, or drew ,their conclusions: cold water is more dense, heavier, than hot water.

This week, drawing from the eighth plague, Choshech(Darkness), the Purple explored light and dark, and shadows. 

Discussions:

How do we get a shadow?

Chana: The sun goes around your whole body and makes a shadow. 

Jemma: You stand in the sun and it brings your body powers to the sun and on the floor so it can be a shadow.

Roni: When it’s a sunny day it gets a shadow. The sun reflects the darkness onto the ground when you’re walking.

The Purple Room went outside to observe their shadows. They traced their friends shadow with chalk, then colored in and drew in all the details of their own shadow. They found it amusing to see how much bigger than they were their shadows.

In this week’s Parsha the children learned that as the Jewish People were preparing to leave Mitzrayim they received the first mitzvah the Jewish People from Hashem: Rosh Chodesh – determining the first day of the Jewish month by observing a new moon. When a new moon appears, sdvvxcit is the beginning of the new Jewish month. The children each created My Moon Book, a flip book with all the sizes of the moon over a 28 day lapse. They also experimented with the sun (a lamp), the earth (themselves) and the moon (a Styrofoam ball). As the ‘moon’ orbited the ‘earth’ they observed the ‘sun’ illuminating more and more of the ‘moon’.

If you were leaving Mitzrayim (Egypt) what would you ask the Mitzryim (Egyptians) for?

Roni: A golden medal. It would have a picture of a heart.

Chana: Lots of jewels and lots of metal gold.

Mason: Gold and dollars.

Zoe: Gold, some gems and nice clothes with gems on it.

Tzivia: Since we’ll be in the dessert – water.

Hammond: Some nice clay and some glitter in the clay.

Jemma: Glitter and some clay.

Ari: A shirt with gems and glitter and a heart on the shirt.

When you leave Mitzrayim (Egypt) what would you pack?

Chana: Lots and lots of water, all kinds of jewelry with glitter on it.

Zoe: A Torah, some jewelry, some water, and some Matzah.

Tzivia: Water, a Torah, jewelry and gold, Gatorade, whip cream and marshmallows.

Matan: Water, money and gold.

Hammond: Some water, animals - I can’t pack them in a suitcase, dough to make Matzah in the sun, some food, some challah, some Kiddush, a Kiddush cup and a Challah board. And wood so I can make stuff.

Roni: A hundred million gold, food, a picture of your kids, the phone, a bow, dolls, the Torah and the Siddur and the ring and all their makeup.

Jemma: Water, pajamas, underwear, makeup, Torah and a ring. 

Ari: Pyjamas and clothes and also I will take a camel so I can put all my stuff on the camel, a phone, a camera.

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline and Morah Chaya

Dear Parents,

Being that Picasso is the artist study for the month of January, the Purple Room children created self portraits utilizing his artistic style with distinctive shapes and bold colors. His abstract art has amused the children as they try to decipher what they can see in his works.

Shabbos

The theme for this week is Shabbos and the Purple Room children have been busy creating stunning napkin rings to enhance the Shabbos tables for the upcoming CJP Shabbos event. They are creating more Shabbos items which are sure to surprise and impress! They hope to see everyone at this exciting event.

Gematria – Numerical Value of Hebrew Letters

Shabbos is the seventh day of the week. The Purple Room children explored the Gematria, numerical value, of the Hebrew letters, Alef being 1, Beis 2 and so on. They found many words that pertain to Shabbos that equal 7. Working out the Gematria of the Hebrew letters for the word wine, yayin, they found that the Hebrew letters equaled 10 + 10 + 50 which totaled to 70. Then, when they added the digits together, 7 + 0, it amounted to 7! The same thing happened with the word Challah. 8 + 30 + 5 = 43. 4 + 3 = 7. Funnily enough, the Hebrew word for ice cream, glida, also added up to 7! 

The Purple Room experienced how wine was made long ago. People stamped on the grapes till all the juice came out. This was exactly the experience of the Purple Room children as they removed their shoes and stamped on the grapes to squeeze out all the juice. 

Parsha

The Purple Room children were shocked to hear how the next King Pharaoh was so mean to the Jewish People. They were glad Hashem had a plan how to free the Jewish People from under the tyranny of such a mean king so they wouldn’t be slaves anymore. They are following the story of Moshe and waiting curiously to see how he will take the Jewish People out of Mitzrayim, Egypt. They see how caring Moshe was of sheep as well as of the Jewish People. 

Song

(Link:   https://www.chabad.org/549140)

B’nei Yisroel suffered bitterly

Moshe was seen killing a Mitzri

From Mitzrayim, Moshe fled

Yisro’s daughter then he wed

As Moshe watched the sheep one day

A baby lamb ran away

He followed the lamb and saw

A bush burning more and more

Moshe heard Hashem tell him

To lead the Jews from Mitzrayim

Moshe and Aharon told Paraoh

To let the Jews go

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Perline and Morah Chaya

Dear Parents,

Getting back into learning fun was easy this week and so exciting to see their friends again. The Purple Room children enjoyed painting in water color about the things they enjoyed doing over the Chanukah and Winter break. Later, they explained their art to their friends. Come take a look at their art on the bulletin board.

PARSHA

The Purple Room children learned in this week’s Parsha about the bracha (blessing) Yaakov gave to his grandsons, Efraim and Menashe. When it was time to receive the bracha Yosef, the father of Efraim and Menashe, put Menashe at his father Yaakov’s right hand and Efraim at his father’s left hand. Even though Menashe was the elder son Yaakov did a funny thing and he crossed over his heads, setting his right hand on Efraim’s head and his left on Menashe’s. This was a good opportunity for the Purple Room to reinforce right and left. They played games reinforcing this concept and made their own ‘bracha hands’ in collaboration with their friends. They learned the Hebrew words for right (y’min) and left (smol).

Song:

This Tefilah from Yaakov, at night is said
By Jewish children before going to bed
To Efraim and Menashe this bracha Yaakov gave

"May the malach (angel) watch over you, for me he did save
In the name of my fathers, Avrohom and Yitzchok, too
May Hashem’s bracha, forever be with you

Hamalach hagoel osi mikol ra
Y’vorech es han’orim, vikorei bahem sh’mee
V’sheim avosai, Avrohom v’Yitzchok
V’yidgu larov b’kerev haaretz

LITERACY

Almost all the children are using the Waseca program in literacy. Sounding out words and then using the moveable alphabet, most children are working on the red set which supports them in spelling CVC words with all the vowels. (CVC = Consonant Vowel Consonant) This is a program individualized for each student. Some students have begun the Orange set which focuses on blends such as s blends like the st blend in step and stop.

The children had fun reviewing their Alef Beis knowledge searching for Alef Beis seashells in shaving cream. Some children who are able to combine the Hebrew letters with the Nekudos (vowels) searched for seashells with Alef Beis and nekudos.

ART

The Purple Room friends have begun learning about a new artist with an interesting style: Pablo Picasso. They saw that Picasso used shapes in his abstract art and they learned what abstract art looks like. They will be thinking about Picasso’s style when they paint their self portraits next week. 

Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Morah Perline and Morah Chaya

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

B”H

Dear Parents,

This week’s parsha (Torah portion) of Chayei Sarah held the children spellbound as they learned about the marriage of Yitzchok and Rivkah, two of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish Nation. They learned of the sad news that Sarah, Avraham’s wife, passed away and how Avraham found a good place to bury her, in Me’oras Hamachpeilah (lit. the cave of doubles) and how, at the end of the parsha, Avraham, too, passes away and is buried there next to her.  

Parsha + Alef Beis Recognition + Art

When Sarah passed away, three special signs left her tent but when her son Yitzchok married Rivkah, they returned: the cloud of Hashem hovered over the tent, her challah/bread stayed fresh an entire week and her Shabbos candles stayed lit an entire week. The Purple Room children made Shabbos candle lighting trays for their moms. They identified the Alef Beis letters and attached the words of the bracha to the trays. They incorporated George Seurat’s revolutionary style of Pointillism art to beautify the trays.

Parsha + Math + Fine Motor

Avraham entrusted his servant Eliezer to find the right wife for Yitzchok. Eliezer trusted in Hashem to help him find the right one and so he found a kind girl, Rivkah, who fed him and his 10 camels water after they had journeyed over the desert. This was no small feat since typically one camel drinks 53 gallons of water. She gave water to 10! But being kind and compassionate, Rivkah gave water for all 10 camels in addition to thirsty Eliezer. When Eliezer realized she would be a good wife for Yitzchok, he asked her if she would marry Yitzchok. Knowing of the caliber of person Yitzchok was, Rivkah joyfully accepted and Eliezer gave her much beautiful jewelry. The Purple Room friends used their fine motor skills to create beautiful and original jewelry for their moms to wear. They also explored patterning, a math skill, to complete  jewelry pattern math problems. 

Song: 

10 camels needed water (3x)

And Rivkah gave one a drink

9 camels needed water (3x)

And Rivkah gave one a drink

All the camels got water (3x)

Now Rivkah can relax!

While singing the song, the Purple Room children subtracted utilizing Cuisenaire rods.

They used one to one correspondence to match up the correct amount of camels to the numbered trough.

Middos (Character Traits)

Learning from Rivkah, the Purple Room is focusing on being kind to each other and using kind words to express themselves. They refer back to the large class sign in the Shatiach (Mat) Area which reminds them to have Ahavas Yisroel (Loving one another) for each other.

Giving Thanks

The thanksgiving project has been well under way in the Purple Room and the Purple Room children have been creating something special which will hold only a few of their many sentiments of thanksgiving to Hashem.

Homework

The Pre K Purple Room children will begin to receive their eagerly awaited (!!) homework every Monday. The assigned homework may be reviewed every day or as many days as the parent’s schedule permits. The Pre K homework folders are to be returned every Monday to be changed.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday to Roni Van Horn whose birthday was celebrated in class this week. Her Purple Room friends created a most loving birthday card for her. Much continued nachas to her parents and grandparents!

Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Morah Perline & Morah Chaya

Dear Parents,

The Parsha this week mentions a Mitzva the Purple Room is rather expert in: Hachnosas Orchim – Welcoming Guests. Avraham and Sarah, our Patriarch and Matriarch, set the bar for welcoming guests which they did with so much joy and enthusiasm. The Purple Room children surely follow in their footsteps as they welcome the many guests that tour our school. But this week they positively outshone themselves as they stirred and squeezed refreshing drinks for their parents. Showing their parents/grandparents to rest their weary feet and sitting in a [comfortable] chair, they then offered them a choice of freshly squeezed orange juice and/or chilled ice tea.

Song:

https://www.chabad.org/519428

From North to South, from East to West
Avrohom’s tent was open to guests
Three malochim were sent
Each to do something different

A son you will have, Sarah was told
She laughed and said, "I’m too old,"
The next malach (angel) came to destroy S’dom
The third came to heal Avrohom

Chorus:

Avrohom ran to the malochim
To be machnis orchim (welcome guests)

Song:

Hachnosas Orchim – it means inviting guests

Hachnosas Orchim – It’s friendship at its best

Hachnosas Orchim – Invite a friend or two

Hachnosas Orchim – It the thing to do.

Discussion:

Have you ever had guests? What were some of the ways you can be helpful and welcoming to a guest?

Alice: Ask if they want a hug when they come in and out of the house. Also show them where the toys are and where the upstairs is and where the bathroom is. 

Ari: we could show them the bathroom if they need to go potty. We can also invite them to play with us. 

Mason: We had guests when I was four. So I don’t remember who it was. Run up to them and ask them if they want food. Like Avraham and Sarah did!

Roni: We had a lot of guests and I ask them if they want a hug from one of the kids. When my cousins came I asked them if they want to see upstairs. 

Zoe: I give them a blanket and sit next to them and also give them snacks and water. 

Hammond: If I see my Nana in my house I run over to her and give her a huge hug.

Literacy

The Pre K group is practicing the following sight words, a few at a time. The Kindergarten group is practicing all of them. 

the, to, and, a, I, you, it, in, said, go, my, we, up

The Pre K class is concentrating on recognizing the starting sounds of words phonetically. For ex: eh – eh – eh – elephant

The Kindergarten group is spelling words with the moveable alphabet followed by writing the words. 

Math

The class measured the trays they used for serving drinks to their parents using the Cuisenaire rods.

The children prepared playdo ‘food’ for guests and counted the items, focusing on naming a number at the same time that they pointed to the item.

Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Morah Perline

Morah Chaya