The Kids Love Lima Beans!

Dear Families,

Despite the short week and the smaller classes, there could not have been more enthusiasm in the Bear’s classroom each day.

The children have begun to request specific books to be read at circle time. One of the recent favorites is called A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon. In this story, Camilla Cream breaks out in stripes from head to toe. After trying many remedies, the stripes disappear only when Camilla eats her favorite food, lima beans, despite the fact that all of her friends tease her for that choice. Because the children have shown such an interest in this story, we based our day around the book. After each child made a picture with stripes (complemented by dried beans) and worked cooperatively with everyone else to create a large colorful collage of stripes and beans, they got to devour a special snack of, you guessed it, lima beans! Every child tried them, and all but one loved them! We have reinforced to the children that it is important to do what they think is right, even if their friends do not agree. We also encouraged many of them to try a new food, and every child did.

Tuesday’s highlight was of course playing in the snow. Because the children love this activity so much, we do request that each child comes to school properly prepared for the playground. This includes not only hats and mittens, but boots and snow pants as well. For children who stay at school for the afternoon, we are also requesting that you send in a second pair of gloves or mittens in case the first pair is wet when the children go outside for a second time.

On Wednesday, by request, the children had a chance to play with shaving cream. They remembered that the last time we did this we sprinkled dry JELLO on the top. This not only colored the cream, but made it smell like strawberry. Once again, strawberry JELLO was sprinkled, but this time we also sprinkled the mixture with cinnamon. The room smelled delicious! Playing with the foam gave the children a wonderful sensory experience. They felt the soft mixture between their fingers, which is very soothing. It also gave them a chance to experiment with “writing” the letters in their names, or drawing shapes on the table. These can be easily erased, and new designs can be made. When the children were finished they had just as much fun cleaning the table as they did playing with the foam.

To those who will be going away next week, we wish you safe travels. To Ella and Dylan, we wish you a Happy 4th birthday.

Have a wonderful week off, and we will see you in 2011!

Morah Rhona and Morah Jessica

Leah's Family is Here for Shabbat this Week

After several weeks of hustle and bustle preparing for and celebrating the holidays of Thanksgiving and Chanukah, the Bears had a very relaxing, quiet, but fun week. Our Art center was home to various painting activities, including car painting, roller painting, and using watercolors over designs made with oil pastels.
The Owls have been kind enough to share some of their materials with our class. The children have enjoyed using the different shaped stampers while using modeling sand. The magna tiles have been used to construct all types of buildings, including garages for our car collection. Our classroom has been fortunate to have been given a set of wooden blocks. The children have certainly enjoyed building with them, both individually, and in small groups. The many friendships formed throughout the year were evident all week, as children played cooperatively in groups at each center.

During a lesson on Shabbat, the children were asked “What do you like about Shabbat?” Here were the responses:

Bailey- challah Cover
Orli- synagogue
Zev- candles
Ben- juice
Emily- singing and the flowers

Thank you to Leah and her family for being our special Shabbat Family this week. It is wonderful to have you visit our school and share this special time with us. We look forward to having every family share this honor.

It was a pleasure touching base with each of you on the phone. It is always great to share information about our program and your children. For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to participate in Tot Shabbat, mark your calendars for Friday, January 7th and Saturday, January 8th.

Please remember that the TCEE will be open regular school hours Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. We will close at 1:00PM on Thursday for winter break. The center will reopen on Monday, January 3, 2011.
If in fact it does snow over the weekend, please send your children to school with hats, mittens, boots, and snow pants. We will continue to daily outside play. Thanks in advance!

To all who will be going away in the next few weeks, safe travels! We wish you a wonderful weekend.

Shabbat Shalom

Morah Rhona and Morah Jessica

New Toys and Materials in the Classroom

This week in the Bear’s classroom we continued with our celebration of Chanukah. The children used Chanukah candles to paint colorful pictures. They also made potato latke plates, dreidle collages, and colorful Chanukiot (Chanukah menorahs). The Chanukiot were made by gluing different colored craft sticks to construction paper and placing tiny pom -poms on top to represent the flames of the candles. In honor of the holiday, we treated the children to some new classroom materials. Our class now has a hammer and nail toy, colorful linking building shapes, and moon sand! The children have all been able to wait for longer periods of time until it will be their turn to use these new toys.

Despite the cold weather, it is our attempt to take the children outside each day, even for a short time. Because of this, we ask you to please dress your children with many layers. Hats and mittens or gloves are a must. For the girls who love to wear dresses to school, we recommend that you PLEASE send in long pants as well since their legs get cold if they are only wearing tights. We will be happy to assist them in putting on the pants before we go outside.

Please remember that the TCEE will be open for regular hours through Wednesday, December 22nd. On Thursday, December 23rd, the center will close at 1:00PM. We will be CLOSED from December 24th, until January 2nd. We will reopen Monday, January 3rd, with regular hours.

On January 3rd, we will begin our next session of afternoon enrichment classes. We invite all children to join in the afternoon fun!

Have a wonderful weekend. Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Rhona and Morah Jessica

Chanukah is finally here!

The focus in the Bear’s classroom this week was all about Chanukah. The children were extremely busy preparing for their celebrations both here at the Trust Center and in their own homes. The children worked extremely hard to create decorations for our school including a large Chanukah menorah (Chanukiah) and a huge dreidel hanging from each of the classroom walls. We hope that you enjoy the special gifts which were decorated for each of you, as well as the homemade wrapping paper!

Music was a big part of the curriculum this week. We worked hard to learn new songs for the family Chanukah celebration. In our sensory table the children had a chance to compare the different sizes and shapes of candles used during various Jewish observances (Shabbat candles, Chanukah candles, and Havdallah candles). Math was tied into the curriculum as we compared the sizes of many different dreidels, counted how many nights we celebrate the holiday, and counted the bolts which were glued onto your new Chanukiot to hold the candles. Language and literature were incorporated this week with many different books and holiday poems.

Being that part of the Chanukah story is about light, the children had the opportunity to experiment with flashlights. We brought scientific observation into the classroom by observing the difference between using flashlights with the lights on versus the lights were off. Our Chanukah holiday curriculum will continue throughout next week with our focus on oil, potato latkes, menorahs and much more!
In our Thursday afternoon enrichment, the children worked cooperatively to create a beautiful dreidel mobile. The children decorated small dreidels and then used yarn and colored ziti to create beautiful strings on which to hang them. The beautiful dreidel mobile is being displayed in our new multi purpose room.

We wish each of our families a wonderful Chanukah.

Morah Rhona and Morah Jessica.