Passover is Here!

Dear Families,

It was a delight to welcome our newest friend, Cindy Huang, to our class this week. The children have all been very excited to help her acclimate to our classroom environment. It is with great joy that we observe the children’s growing sense of empathy and ability to understand what it is like for Cindy to be new. Many of them have begun to try to recall their own experiences with being new at our school.

One of the ways that we support children in building empathy at school is to do a lot of talking about what other children and adults might be thinking or feeling. The ability to understand and predict others’ emotions and thoughts is something that we take for granted as adults, but is exceptionally challenging to the cognitive development of four- and five-year-olds. At school we try to speak a lot about the perspectives and motives of others! For example, if a child is sad, we might say something like, “It looks like Joey is sad. Maybe he is missing his dad,” and then ask the children if they can think of a way to help.

The children have greatly enjoyed our final week of preparations for Passover. Thank you all so much for supporting the children in researching the questions that they wrote last week. They were all so excited and proud to share what they had learned with each other. Engaging in research (even simple research with the aid of a parent) supports children in beginning to feel confident in their ability to learn.

Late last week, we created a paper chain with the number of links corresponding to the number of days before Passover begins. Each day at Morning Meeting this week, we have removed a link from the chain. This supports the children’s counting and time-telling skills by making the passing of time more concrete.

We have engaged in several scientific explorations of parts of the Seder Plate this week. On Tuesday, we observed a few kinds of horseradish. The children each looked at and touched a fresh horseradish root. We made connections between the horseradish and the roots growing in the Root Viewer Planter that we use at the Science Center. The children all smelled some grated fresh horseradish, and noticed the deep purple color of horseradish jarred with beets. The children were then all invited to taste a tiny little bit of the fresh horseradish on a cracker, after Morah Larissa and Morah Kate determined that it was mild enough for a young child’s palette. A few of them tasted it, and some even liked it! We related the bitter taste of the horseradish to the bitter experience of the slaves in Egypt.

We also experimented with salt and water this week, as saltwater appears on the Seder Plate as a symbol of the Israelites’ tears. The children each started with a cup of salt and made predictions about what would happen when we added water. Many of them remembered the experiment that we did with baking soda and vinegar many months ago, during our study of bread. Some of them thus predicted that a mixture of salt and water with bubble and fizz, while others predicted that the salt would dissolve. We discovered that indeed, the salt did dissolve. We noticed that the saltwater was a little cloudier than regular water. The children then became curious about adding more salt. We did, and discovered that if we added too much salt, not all of it could dissolve in the water.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed another guest reader from the Temple Ohabei Shalom Sisterhood. The children loved meeting Margie Kahn. She read us two books about Passover, and we thanked her by singing one of our favorite songs, “Lotsa, Lotsa Matzah,” for her. We are so lucky to have volunteer readers in our school, as this helps to support the children in forming a deeper connection to the synagogue and its members.

On Thursday, we enjoyed spending the entire day with the Bears! It was great for the children to have an opportunity to engage in a larger group for the whole morning, as this provides them with more varied social opportunities. It is especially beneficial and enjoyable for the Owls to begin to serve as role models. We all enjoyed making homemade matzah together, which, to great surprise, many of the children enjoyed eating! This was a fun sensory experience, in which the children worked on fine motor skills by pushing the dough down with their hands, using a rolling pin and pricking it with a fork. The children also worked on sequencing skills.

We worked hard on decorating trays this week that the children can use for their four cups of wine (or grape juice!) traditionally used at a seder. The children used a tissue paper decoupage technique to carefully decorate their trays. We talked about how we drink four glasses of juice at a seder, and then asked the children if they could think other sets of four. Right away, the children made the connection the Four Questions asked by the youngest child at a seder. We also found many sets of four in the classroom – four legs at the Sand Table, four chairs at the Dramatic Play table, and four stools at the Snack Table. Being able to recognize a set of a number is an excellent way for children to build number sense (the understanding of what “four” is, for example). In the new Common Core Standards that will affect preschools not just in Massachusetts but in most states, there is a heavy math emphasis on building number sense in preschool. You can support this skill with children by looking for sets of a particular number in your home and as you go about your errands each day.

We wish you all the best for the vacation week and look forward to seeing you on April 26 when school resumes. Chag Sameach!

-Morah Larissa and Morah Kate