Have you heard about our newest friends?

Dear Families,

Have you heard about Zara, Luis, Alice, Caillou, Tosie, Curious George, Morris, All Different Colors, and Shiny? They are our new class worms! Originally purchased as fish bait, they are currently living in a clear recycled plastic container in the Owls Classroom. We will keep them in the classroom for a couple of weeks before releasing them into our garden. Each day, we take out individual worms to place on moist paper towels on trays for the children. The children are invited to watch the worms move, to look at them under magnifying glasses, and to touch them with or without gloves on.

Bringing worms into the classroom is a joyful opportunity for young children to gain hands-on experience with nature, and to develop a comfort with and respect for even the smallest and least attractive of life forms. We have spent a lot of time talking about how to humanely handle and treat the worms, keeping in mind the Jewish value of Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim, or kindness to animals. We’ve also discussed how worms help humans and other life forms by aerating and fertilizing soil. The children have truly learned to value earthworms.

We did unfortunately experience the death of a worm (Rosie) this week, as a child was playing with it. To support the children in their growing understandings and feelings regarding death, we emulated a popular children’s book about the death of a pet, The Ten Good Things About Barney, by Judith Viorst by each talking about the good qualities of Rosie before disposing of her body. We then discussed the Jewish tradition of naming a baby after someone who has died, and thus decided to name the replacement worm Tosie, after Rosie.

We have conducted a couple of simple science experiments involving the worms this week. First, we made some predictions about whether or not the worms would prefer light or darkness. The children thought the worms might prefer the light. Next we placed a few worms on a tray, half-covered by a sheet of dark paper. Then we shone a flashlight over the worms, and noticed that they slowly began to slither underneath the sheet of paper. Later, while reading a non-fiction book, Wiggling Worms at Work (by Wendy Pfeffer), we learned that worms prefer the darkness because they most able to breath in dark, moist conditions.

We have also experimented with feeding the worms scraps from our snacks and lunch, including apple peels, sweet potato peels, and bits of a pancake. The children are anxious to see if the worms will eat the food, but we have learned that they can only eat food once it has started to decompose.

We have also played some fun games involving worms this week. A fun rainy day game (and we’ve had quite a few rainy days!) has been Worm, Worm, Snail, our latest version of the ever popular Duck, Duck, Goose. The children have tried slithering after each other around the circle instead of running. This supports their growing core strength (the strength of their abdominal and back muscles, necessary to sit up and remain balanced). We’ve also played a game using different colored pieces of yarn, or “baby worms.” The children have used tweezers to move the baby worms to egg cartons labeled with corresponding colors in various patterns. This game supports the children in developing strength in their hand muscles through use of the tweezers (necessary for writing) as well as color matching and in understanding and being able to extend patterns.We enjoyed a guest reader from the Temple Ohabei Shalom Sisterhood, Amy Holzid Plancon, this Thursday. She read the children an old favorite, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton. This was a wonderful opportunity for the children to come to know the synagogue membership betterA literacy skill that we have focused on this week is phonemic awareness, or the awareness of the sounds in language. We reinforce phonemic awareness throughout the day, even during transitions, when children are asked to line up when the first sound of their name is called. Rhyming games and songs and nonsense poetry are also fun ways to reinforce phonemic awareness. We also enjoy supporting the children in noticing alliteration in the world around them. We have begun to model listening for beginning and ending sounds in a word as well. Phonemic awareness is a crucial skill to the children’s future reading abilities.

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Larissa and Morah Kate