Dear Purple Room Families,

    We are deeply involved in our Pesach (Passover) learning. We are experiencing the Pesach story through songs, games, math, and art. The children are hard at work on their own haggadahs, which we will send home before the holiday.

Pesach Learning: Spring

Passover is also known as Chag Ha’aviv, the holiday of spring. To explore spring, we harvested greens from our school garden. We compared the lettuce, spinach, and arugula leaves’ shape, color, and texture.

We chopped fruits and vegetables and combined them with the greens to make a delicious salad for our Shabbat party!

Pesach Learning: Math

The children are fascinated by the pyramids they see depicted in images of the Pesach story. We have been comparing 2D and 3D shapes, and discussing their attributes. We are building our own pyramids from blocks, cups, and rocks. This exploration helps children understand the attributes of shapes as they compare images and try to construct their own. 

We have also learned about the 10 plagues that befell Egypt, and the 15 steps of the seder. We are playing games and singing songs that help us learn combinations of numbers that make 10 and 15.

The children learned how the Jewish people had to make bricks for Pharaoh in Egypt. We have read books and watched videos about how this might have been done in ancient times. The children have been experimenting with different mixtures of sand and soil to make our own bricks, and have created a brick-making center in our classroom.

Pesach Learning: Full Body Play

The children are particularly interested in how Hashem split the Red Sea for the Jewish people. We have been playing and pretending the splitting of the sea, and created a balance game to pretend that we too are crossing the Red Sea.

Pesach Learning: The Seder

We are learning about the steps of the seder, the songs, and the special items on the seder plate. We have Pesach items in our Dramatic Play center where the children enjoy creating play seders. 

Everyone loves the Afikomen! As we learn the steps of the seder, we have been playing “find the afikomen” inside and outside the classroom.

Pesach Learning: The Haggadah

The children are hard at work creating the pages of their haggadahs. As we learn each step of the seder, we use art and multisensory materials to make a new page in our haggadahs.

Have a wonderful Shabbat!

Morah Shoshi and Morah Athena

 

Dear Purple Room Families,

    In all the excitement, we didn't get a chance to tell you about all the amazing Purim learning we did last week. As we planned our Purim celebrations, we focused on the four mitzvot of Purim: hearing megilla, having a mishteh (feast), giving mishloach manot (gifts of food to friends), and giving matanot l’evyonim (gifts to the poor.) Read on to find out how we brought each of these mitzvot into our learning last week!

Megillah Making

We did an edible megillah craft, using tortillas as the parchment. We used food markers and fruit to decorate our megillot. The children particularly enjoyed cutting and preparing the fruit for the project. Some children wrote letters, others drew the Purim story. This led to an interest in making paper megillot, with many children making and exchanging small paper scrolls with messages and pictures.

We also finished our groggers so we could use them during the megilla reading!

Hamentaschen Making

We tried many different play doughs to figure out which one would make a good dough for play hamentaschen. A soap-based play dough turned out to be the best! We enjoyed the process of testing and making the different recipes. We set up a corner of our room to be a hamentaschen bakery, where the children could practice rolling and shaping the cookies. Finally, we made REAL hamentaschen for Purim! First, we did a taste test of different filling options, and graphed and counted the results. Then, we followed a recipe and made delicious hamentaschen to enjoy.

 

Mishloach Manot

We decorated bags for mishloach manot, and the children enjoyed counting and distributing the items they had brought. We had a mishloach manot exchange the day before Purim.

 

​​

Giving Matanot L’evyonim (Gifts to the Poor)

We talked about why we give gifts to the poor, so that every Jew can celebrate Purim and have a mishteh (feast) regardless of how rich or poor they are. During davening, we started counting pennies to see how many we could give as matanot l’evyonim. This led to an interest in numbers that make ten, which we explored in our math center. We also introduced the game Tiny Polka Dot, a fun number sense game. The day before Purim, we decorated a bag for our matanot l’evyonim, and everyone got to put pennies in. We presented our matanot l’evyonim to Rabbi Deitsch so he could give the money to someone who needed it. 

 

We hope you also had a meaningful and fun Purim! 

Have a wonderful Shabbat,

Morah Shoshi and Morah Athena

 

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.

We added flour to create the dough. We had to work together to mix it. 

Cloud dough felt like kinetic sand.

We took cloud dough outside to work with in the mud kitchen.

Next week, we will continue the Purim exploration! Please check the list we have given out for Purim Spirit Week.

Have a wonderful Shabbat,

Morah Shoshi and Morah Athena