Friday, March 18, 2011

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Dear Families,

This has been a week of many celebrations in the Owls’ Room! On Tuesday, we completed our alphabet chart. This was a great achievement for the children and we celebrated with some alphabet cookies for snack. The children’s enthusiasm for this project was incredible and they have each demonstrated a new sense of mastery over alphabet letters. They often look at the alphabet chart throughout the day, and refer to it when experimenting with writing. We are looking forward to putting the photos of the children into a small book! Please stay tuned for more information about this.


We also enjoyed making Morah Shari a small gift for her birthday on Thursday. We decorated a tote bag for her and made it extra sparkly, as per the children’s request. It is always an amusing challenge for four- and five-year-olds to try to keep a secret about a gift. We may have had more security leaks than we would like to admit! The children felt a great sense of pride about being able to create something real and useful for a favorite teacher.

We led up to our Purim festivities on Friday by wearing funny hats on Wednesday and celebrating Backwards Day on Thursday. We even tried walking backwards and ate lunch before snack on Backwards Day!

Finally, we spent much of our week continuing to learn about Purim and preparing to celebrate it. The children watched Morah Kate and Morah Larissa re-create the Purim story using puppets, and then made their own puppets. We took out the puppet theater at Dramatic Play so that the children could perform their own puppet shows. Through so many varied, but repeated exposures to the Purim story, the children have been able to develop an understanding of why we celebrate this holiday.


We focused many of our discussions this week on some of the feelings that the characters of the Purim story might have had. In particular, we have talked about Esther’s bravery – how it was scary for her to go before King Achashverosh, but how brave she was nonetheless. One day at Circle Time, the children discussed scary situations in which they have been brave, and the next day, they drew and used dictation to write about their own experiences. The children thought about times that they have jumped off diving boards or been at a doctor’s office. Talking about the feelings characters might have in stories helps children to build their comprehension skills. It also helps children to relate to the story and makes the learning more relevant for the children.


We also prepared for Purim this week by decorating bags for Mishloach Manot, or the gifts of food that we give on Purim. Most importantly, we made hamantaschen! First we read a teacher-made “book” of the recipe. Then we made the dough, carefully measuring the flour, sugar, oil and eggs. We refrigerated the dough overnight and shaped the hamantaschen the next day. This was a great geometry lesson, as we learned how to turn a circle into a triangle shaped cookie.


The theme of castles appears in the Purim story (as Esther goes to live in the king’s castle) and is often of high interest to young children. Morah Larissa’s husband, Dr. Gregory Halfond, who is a Medieval Historian, joined us on Thursday to read the children a book about castles. The children were fascinated by the pictures. They discussed the sequence of events that they have learned about. Julia pointed out that first there were dinosaurs, then Queen Esther and then came our school. The historian-in-residence agreed that this was a fairly good assessment of things.


Finally, we made masks for Purim as well, decorating paper cut-outs with water colors. Another favorite Purim activity used laminated paper hamantaschen for sorting, counting and making patterns. The children’s math skills have all grown so much throughout the year!


Please remember that there is no school next Thursday, March 24th as the TCEE staff will be participating in a Professional Development Day at Smith College.


Shabbat Shalom and Happy Purim!

-Morah Kate and Morah Larissa

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