This week, we began our study of Passover. Our focus this week was on learning the story of Passover. In the following two weeks, we will learn about some of the ways that we celebrate Passover, including seders and the symbolic foods that we eat.
We began learning about Passover by reading books, including Sammy Spider’s First Passover, by Sylvia A. Rouss. The children then created a Word Web about Passover. We enjoyed making our Word Web look like Sammy Spider’s web, drawing arrows to show connections between ideas! Creating a Word Web nurtures the children into having a focused conversation on a topic in which they can learn from each other and build on each other’s ideas. We have begun to use the phrase “big idea” with the children, to support them in building a variety of comprehension strategies.
We have also been hard at work adding some springtime into our classroom, with little cooperation from the weather. The children chose some seeds with Morah Kate to plant in our new Root Viewer. We planted carrot, radish and onion seeds. The Root Viewer is a slim, clear plastic panel which shows roots growing below the soil level. We also used liquid watercolors to blend reds, purples and pinks which we painted onto paper tulips.
As with previous holidays, we have used multiple strategies to support the children’s comprehension of the story of Passover. On Tuesday, Morah Kate did a puppet show about Baby Moses. On Wednesday, all the children participated in “doing a play” of the entire story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt.
Multiple experiences with a story that include active participation support the children in understanding the story and beginning to feel some ownership over it. We include a variety of experiences because we have come to understand that all children learn differently – some children learn well from an auditory experience (such as listening to a story) while others learn better from a kinesthetic experience (such as acting a story out).
In the beginning of the week, we focused on the first half of story of Exodus – learning about Baby Moses being put into a basket in the bulrushes. The children each decorated a clothespin and wrapped it in a blanket to create their own Baby Moses. Working to decorate a small object (such as a clothespin, but also a small piece of paper) pushes children to use a pincer grasp as they try to develop more control over their work. On Wednesday, we made paper baskets for each of our Baby Moses dolls. Nicholas wondered how we could make a river to put the baskets in, like in the story. Morah Larissa found a long piece of blue felt, and we have added this to the Dramatic Play area. 
We have also added a Passover Set to the Dramatic Play Area. The children are enjoying putting the seder plate on the table and collecting matzah to create their own pretend seders. We have worked hard to take turns with the seder plate. In school, our goal is for the children to develop more independence when it comes to sharing and turn-taking. A favorite (and effective) classroom routine is to create a waiting list. The children write their name on paper or on a wipe-off board to show that they are waiting to play in a particular area or with a special toy.
Another Passover theme that we have focused on this week is the building of the pyramids by the Israelites. We have tried building our own pyramids in the block area.
We’ve also begun building a papier-mâché pyramid together as a class! We are using shoeboxes and pretending that they are bricks. We have been making a mixture of flour, salt, water and shredded paper, and pretending that this is mortar. This hands-on project has been a wonderful way for the children to understand what mortar is and how it is used. This will be helpful to them moving ahead, when we learn about the charoset on the seder plate (which symbolizes mortar). We were lucky when we found some workers using mortar and bricks on the sidewalk on the way to our playground on Thursday. This was a wonderful (and entirely coincidental) learning opportunity, as the children were able to see real mortar used with real bricks.
We have also been exploring other parts of the story of Exodus. We noticed that Moses is raised in the Pharaoh’s palace, and we wondered what that palace might be like. We used tape, paper and fabric to decorate our dollhouse to make it resemble the Pharaoh’s palace. This enabled the children to use three dimensional art to represent and communicate their ideas.
We also noted that Egypt is a desert, with much sand. On Thursday, the children used sand and paint to create their artwork at the art table. 
We have begun to learn a bit about the Ten Plagues, some favorites of which are frogs and locusts. The children have enjoyed trying to find some of our plastic bugs in the encyclopedia of real bugs that we have in our school.
On Thursday, we began doing some story-writing with the children. The children were each invited to go to the computer with Morah Larissa. They were invited to tell a story, and then dictated their words to her. Dictation teaches supports children in learning that written text communicates meaning. We have begun to take dictation to the next level of learning. From time to time, we will pause and “think aloud” about the sounds of a word and how they might be written. Sometimes we will even say a word very slowly, deliberately annunciating each sound, and invite the children to help us to use the sounds to write the word.
Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Larissa and Morah Kate
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