Thanksgiving Sharing Pie

The story of Thanksgiving was told via puppet show and turned out to be a big hit in our class.  One side of the backdrop displayed England which had homes and stores.  In the story children learned that in England the people there were comfortable, they could get food from the store and had warm homes to live in but they couldn't do all the things that made them happy so they set out to find a new place to live.  These people were called Pilgrims and they packed up some things, got on a big boat called the Mayflower and sailed on water for a long time.

Finally, they found some land and came off the Mayflower but this new place was nothing like England.  To show the contrast and help children understand the hardships the Pilgrims endured in the new land, the other side of the backdrop displayed America with only some trees and teepees.  The Pilgrims had no homes to live in and there were no stores for them to buy food.  They were very cold and hungry.

Morah:  "How do you thing the Pilgrims felt to have no homes and no food?"

Children:  "Sad."  "Scared."  "They cry."

Morah:  "That's right, they were sad and scared and maybe even cried.  But they met some friends in the new land.  These new friends were called Native Americans and they helped and shared with the Pilgrims.  They helped Pilgrims build homes and learn how to plant yummy pumpkins, corn and cranberries in their gardens and how to have turkeys on a farm.  How do you think the Pilgrims felt when the Native Americans helped and shared with them?

Children:  "Happy."

Morah:  "That's right, the Pilgrims were so happy they made a big "Thank You" feast and invited the Native Americans to join them.  They ate turkey and corn and cranberries and it was all so yummy.  Everyone was happy to be together and happy to help and share with each other.  To remember this story and how the Native Americans helped and shared with the Pilgrims every year we have a Thanksgiving feast.  We eat lots of turkey, cranberry sauce, corn, pumpkin pie and other yummy foods.  We also spend time with family and friends and say Thank You for all that we have.

After hearing the story of Thanksgiving a few times the children began using the backdrops and puppets to retell the story themselves.  They acted out the Native Americans helping and sharing with the Pilgrims and added homes, turkeys and gardens to the backdrop. 

When the children learned that there would be a big Thanksgiving party to which our friends and family would come to celebrate with us they were very excited.  During circle time we discussed invitations and made one of our own to tell our families about the upcoming Thanksgiving Feast.  We also talked about what the invitation should say and what is the best place for us to put it so that all the moms and dads can see it.

 

The next thing we had to do as a class is prepare some delicious food to share with our friends and family at the Thanksgiving feast.  The children were so excited when they found out that we would be making pumpkin pies.  First we had to learn more about pumpkin pies.

Did you ever see a pumpkin pie?

Children:  "Yes, my daddy make a pumpkin pie for me."  "My mommy buy a pumpkin pie in the store."  "Pumpkin pie is round like a circle."

What do you think a pumpkin pie is made of?

Children:  "Pumpkin!"

How do you think a pumpkin pie tastes?

Children:  "Yummy!"  "Good."  "Sweet." "Like a pumpkin."

After making the pumpkin pies came a lesson on sharing the pumpkin pies.

Morah: “I have this pie, it looks so good. What kind of pie do you think it is? What shape is the pie? What colors to you see on the pie? This pie is going to be so delicious; I just can’t wait to eat it. Do you have a pumpkin pie?


Children: “No, I don’t have one.” “I want pumpkin pie.” “Please can I have pie?”


Morah: “You don’t have a pie?  I want you to have some pie too but I only have one pie. What can we do?


Children: “We can share!” “I have a piece and Lexi have a piece and everybody have a piece.”

Morah: “Wait, how do we know we have enough pie for everyone. What should we do to make sure that we have enough for everyone?”

Children: “We can count!”


Morah: “Great idea, first let’s count how many friends we have in class today. Now let’s count how many pieces of pie we have. Do we have enough to share with all our friends in class today?”


Children: “Yes!”

The children were so happy to have a piece of pie and it was so much fun pretending to eat it together.

Morah: “Wow, look at the back of your pie. What do you see there?”

Children: “I see a letter and dots.” “I see 2, one, two dots.” “Can I see your pie, what do you have on your pie?”

Morah: “I have a number on my piece too, it’s number 4 and there are four dots under the number 4.”

Morah: “Can you count the dots on the back of your piece of pie? How many dots do you have?”

Children: “I have 5.” “I have 7.” “I have 2.”…

Morah: “Look there are numbers and dots here on the plate.”

Children: “I see my number, can I put it?” “I want to match my number too.” “I have 1 dot and I see 1 dot here.”

Morah: “Do you like this game? Would you like to make your own sharing pie game?”

Children: “Yes!”

The “Sharing Pie” craft was fun and provided a great opportunity for children to use glue and follow multi-step instructions. I will also be a fun game for children to play with their families and feel the joy of sharing.

Autumn Explorers - Getting In Touch With Nature

 The weather is changing and things outdoors look different. Autumn is upon us and we have been learning about what happens during this time. We read a book and learned that the weather gets cooler, the leaves change colors and that animals are very busy preparing for winter. We wondered what signs of autumn we could find. Before we went on a nature walk we looked out the window to see if we could find any signs of autumn in our playground.

Children: “I see leaves on the grass.” “It’s windy, I see trees moving.” “Look! I see squirrel.”

Morah: “Wow, where do you think that squirrel is going?”

Children: “To her home up, up in a tree.” “To find food.” “Her likes acorns.”

 With our explorer bags at hand we ventured out into the forest behind our school to look for signs of autumn. This was our first autumn nature walk (early October) but it wasn’t long before we found some signs of aututumn.

Children: “I see leaves on the ground.” “There’s so many.” “I see a red leaf and yellow leaf.”

The leaves are falling down.

The leaves are falling down.

Red, yellow, orange and brown.

The leaves are falling down.

 While exploring the great outdoors we used our senses which lead us toward many different discoveries.

Children: “I find a big tree.” “This is scratchy tree.” “Tree is hard.” “Makes my hand itchy.”

Morah: “This rough and scratchy part of the tree is called bark.

 We found some interesting things on the ground under the tree.

Children: “I find acorn.”

Morah: “Wow, how did this acorn get here?

Children: “It falled from the tree.” “Someone bite it.”

Morah: “Someone bit it? Who do you think did that?”

Children: “Deer.” “Squirrel.” “Bear.” “Chipmunk.” “Bird.”

Morah: “You’re right it was probably an animal, animals like to eat acorns.”

 We found more interesting things on the ground.

Children: “I find a berry, look Morah, it’s a berry.” “Looks like tiny apple.” “It’s for eating?”

Morah: “I’m not sure that we can eat it but who do you think can definitely eat it?

Children: “Aminals!!!”

Morah: “That’s right, I bet animals love eating these berries. I wonder where this berry came from. Let’s look all around and see if we can find out where they grow.”

 Children: “I find it, I find it, it’s up in the tree, look I see a lot berries, so many for all the aminals.”

Morah: “Wow, you are all such great explorers, you found the berry tree. Now we know where these grow.”

Children: “I want to put one in my explorer bag.” “Me too, I can’t find it, can you get it from the tree.”

Morah: “I really don’t want to take one from the tree because that might hurt the tree. Let’s just look for some more on the ground.”

 Child: “Wow, morah, look at this tree, what is it?”

Morah: “This is an evergreen tree. Do you see any leaves on this tree?”

Child: “No, I don’t see leaves in this tree, why? Look everybody there’s no leaves on this tree, what are these things on it?”

 Children: “Theres pointy things on it.” “It poke me.” “It’s sharp, ouchy.”

Morah: “These sharp, pointy things are called needles and they grow on evergreen trees.”

Children: “Like needles in the doctor?” “I get a shot with a needle, it hurt a lot.”

Morah: “These needles are called the same like the needles at the doctor but doctors don’t use these to give shots. These needles just grow on evergreen trees and doctors use different needles.”

 Child: “Ah! I find something, I touch it, it’s not leaf, what is it morah?”

Morah: “Wow, you found a mushroom.”

Children: “What’s mushroom?” “I don’t like mushrooms.” “I do, I like to eat mushrooms.” “Only my mommy like mushrooms.”

Morah: “Mushrooms grow in the ground like plants do and we can eat some mushrooms but not this one.”

Children: “Why?” “Why we can’t eat this one?” “Can animals eat this mushroom.”

Morah: “Yes, animals can eat this mushroom. Which animals do you think would like to eat this mushroom?”

 Children: “I find fuzzy grass.” “It’s so soft.” “It tickling my hand.”

Morah: “This is moss, you’re right it is very soft and fuzzy.”

 We found lots of leaves on our nature walk and many were already changing color.

Child: “I find a leaf, I see brown and green on my leaf, why it’s brown on it.”

Morah: “The leaves are changing color because it’s autumn time, soon all the leaves will change color and then they will fall down.”

 Before we went on our second nature walk which was at the end of October we looked at the pictures from our first nature walk to remind ourselves of the experience and what we found. This is a picture of how the forest looked on our second nature walk.

Morah: “Before we go into the forest let’s just look at it first. Do you see anything different? Look up at the trees and the leaves, look on the ground. What do you see?

Children: “So many leaves on the ground.” “I see orange and yellow.”

Morah: “That’s right almost all the leaves have changed color and so many already fell on the ground.”

 After reviewing safety rules and the importance of staying on the path we began our second forest exploration.

Children: “Where is the path, I don’t see the path?”

Morah: “Oh my gosh, you’re right, where IS the path. It was here last time. What do you think happened to it?”

Children: “Somebody taked it.” “It hiding, maybe it playing hide and seek.”

Morah: “LOL, you think it’s hiding, where could the path be hiding?”

Children: “In the forest.” “Behind the tree.” “Under the leaves.”

Morah: “Maybe it is hiding, where should we look for it?”

Children: “I find it, it’s under the leaves.” “The leaves cover up the path, that silly.”

 Morah: “Wow, look at that beautiful tree, all the leaves are orange and look at all the leaves on the ground around the tree.”

I’m a tree so tall, tall, tall.

Now my leaves must fall, fall, fall.

Leaves go tumbling down, down, down.

Orange, yellow, red and brown.

 Morah: “Let’s collect some leaves to put into our explorer bags.”

Child: “I don’t want leaves, they dirty on the ground.”

Morah: “You don’t want the leaves from the ground because they’re dirty? Hmm, what can we do? How else can we get the leaves into your explorer bag?”

Child: “I want leaves to fall in my bag, I open my bag and wait.”

Morah: “That sounds like a good idea, let’s try that and see if it works.”

 Children: “Gabriel find a branch, look it’s so big.” “I see orange leaves on the branch.” “How the branch got here?” “Put it up high Gabriel.” “It so big.” “It fall down from a tree.” “Why it fall down?”

Morah: “Sometimes branches fall because of the wind. When the wind is very strong outside it can break the branches and they fall down.”

 The children had a lot of fun crunching and kicking the leaves on the ground.

Morah: “Are you having fun kicking the leaves? What sound do you hear when you kick the leaves.”

Children: “Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.” “Crunching.”

 During our nature walk we tried to keep our eyes open and look for some animals. We didn’t find any, probably because we were having so much fun and making lots of noise. We did however find one spider among all those leaves.

Child: “Morah, I find a spider, look, quick, he’s going to hide, I don’ see him, he hiding under the leaves.”

 At the end of the path we found the river. It was nice to see the water in the river passing by.

Children: “I see leaves in the river.” “Why the leaves are in the river?” “They falled down in the river?”

Morah: “Yes, the leaves fall down and some fall into the river. Do leaves float or sink in the river?

Children: “Float!” “They float, like a boat.”

We had such an amazing experience during both our nature walks and we learned so much about the forest, trees and leaves.  We love exploring nature and before we headed back to our classroom to examine the contents of our explorer bags we found a nice spot to sit and rest.  Fallen trees are great for resting on.

Holidays Are Special Days

We began our Rosh Hashanah unit with a Circle Time discussion about this special Holiday:

Morah: “There is a special holiday coming up and it’s called Rosh Hashanah. Holidays are special days and I am so happy that this special Holiday called Rosh Hashanah is coming soon.

What do we already know about Rosh Hashanah?”

Child: “My daddy tell me about Rosh Hashanah and shofar.”

Morah: “Wow, that’s great, we already know there is a shofar. What else can you tell us about the shofar?”

Child: “You blow and it make sound.”

Morah: “That’s right, let’s read a story book and see what else we can learn about Rosh Hashanah.”

We read “Is it Rosh Hashanah Yet?” a custom Zimmer Preschool book. We learned all about how we prepare for, celebrate and what we eat on Rosh Hashanah.

 

 Visual Aids

While dialoguing about Rosh Hashanah during circle time we looked at pictures. Visuals help us learn about new Holidays and aide in daily reviews to keep the new information fresh in our minds. They also help set the mood in the classroom and draw distinction to the customs, practices and artifacts associated with each Holiday. Children enjoy looking at and dialoguing about the pictures during Circle and Center Times.

“Look, I see apples and honey and candles and challah, it’s for a Holiday”

Holiday Props

In addition to pictures we also use real Holiday artifacts during Circle Time and in various centers. Here we are learning in more detail about the Shofar. We touched and felt the inside and outside surfaces of the Shofar. We also saw pictures of animals from which the Shofar comes.

“Shofar is a horn from that animal? Wow!”

 

Holiday Preparations – A Community Effort

Spreading a table cloth looked easy enough in the book but when it came time to performing the task it posed a bit of a challenge. It was both comical and amazing watching the trial and error and problems solving process that went into the table cloth experience.

“Morah, how this goes?” “Not like that, let’s try it different.” “You take that side and I take this side.” “It’s all tangled up, we need to fix it.” “Please can you move the chairs so we can do it?”

Holiday Preparations - Special Customs and Traditions

Children: “We need challah.” “Round challah, like in the book.”

Morah: “These challahs have sweet raisins in them. How do you think challah with raisins would taste?”

Children: “Yummy.” “Good” “Sweet.” “I like raisins and I like Challah.”

Holiday Table

Children: “We did it!” “It looks beautiful.” “I want to eat something here in this table.” “Oh, I can get my lunch box.” “But I want apple and honey.” “Morah, please can we eat apples and honey?”

Morah: “That’s a great idea, we can pretend that it is already Rosh Hashanah and have a festive meal with our friends, eat apples with honey and wish each other a Sweet New Year. What’s the first thing we should do?”

Children: “Cut the apples!”

A Taste of the Holidays

Children: “It’s good.” “I like honey it’s sweet.” “Makes my hands all sticky.”

Morah: “How do you feel when you eat the sweet apples and honey.”

Children: “Yummy.” “Good.” “Sticky.” “Happy.”

Morah: “That’s wonderful that you feel good and happy. That is how we want to feel on Rosh Hashanah and every day. Hashem loves us and wants us to be happy.”

 

Holiday Fun and Games – Sorting by Color

Children sorted apples by color. They enjoyed playing this game in groups and individually.

“Green apples, red apples, yellow apples.”

Holiday Fun and Games - Sorting by Size

Children took turns and helped each other while sorting Shofars by size. They also had lots of fun pretending to blow the paper Shofar. 

Holiday Opportunities - Strengthening Observation Skills

 We spent some time exploring with apples. We discovered that all apples are not the same color and some are even colorful, “This apple has a lot of colors like a rainbow.” “I see green and pink and yellow.” We looked at pictures of apples and real apples of all colors.  We noticed that all apples are round and we thought of some other foods that are round. “My tomato is round.” “Grapes is round.” “Gabriel’s sandwich is round.”

Holiday Opportunities - Documenting Observations

After careful observations we documented our findings by drawing our own apples. We kept the apples on the table to help us remember how they look. We chose which colors we wanted to use for our apples and even added a stem to make them look more like real apples. Don’t they look beautiful? We are so proud that we can draw things that we see!

Holiday Opportunities - Science Discovery

The following day we took an even closer look at apples.  We used magnifying glasses to get a better look just like real scientists.

Children: "I see dots!"  "I see dots too and I see lines."  "I see lines too pink lines and green lines."  "There's so many dots on this apple."

Holiday Opportunities - Documenting Observations

This time children documented their observations on apple shaped pieces of paper since we focused on the surface details.  They drew lines and dots like the ones they saw on the real apples.

Learning Shapes with Challah Dough

On a Friday while making challah for Shabbat we played with the dough and learned about circles and ovals. Children learned about the round challah for Rosh Hashanah but what is the shape of the challah when it’s not Rosh Hashanah? The children had no idea so I quickly braided one to remind them how the usual Shabbat challah looks.

Morah: “This is a challah that we eat on Shabbat, it is an oval shape. Is this challah the same as the challah we eat on Rosh Hashanah?”

Children: “No, Rosh Hashanah challah is round.” “That’s not round.”

Morah: “That’s right, this challah is an oval shape. It looks a little like a circle but it’s a not as round as a circle. Look what happens when I squish the sides a little; I can make this challah into a circle shape. Can you try to make your challah into a circle?

Learning Shapes with Challah Dough

After shaping challah dough into circles we used our hands to squish the sides and mold the dough into an oval shape.

Children: “I squish it and make oval.” “It looks like a squished circle.” “It’s same like a egg.” “I want to squish it again and make a circle and then I squish again and make oval!”

School-Home Holiday Connection

Holidays are so much fun and the foods are so delicious so what better way to spread the joy than to bring some yummy Holiday food home.  Children were so excited to make Challah with the extra sweet ingredients. 

Children:  "We put honey in the Challah."  "We don't put honey in Challah for Shabbat."  "Yeah, and raisins too."  "I like raisins."  "I'm going to share this Challah with my mommy and daddy."

School-Home Holiday Connection

As a special take home Rosh Hashanah craft the children decorated apple and honey plates. Pushing the colorful beads into the clay was fun and engaging for the children. The finished product is beautiful and sure to be a great addition to the festive Rosh Hashanah table.

“I want to bring this home to show mommy and daddy.”

“My mommy can put apple and honey in here.”

Making Memories and Establishing Traditions

This plate was made to be used at the Holiday table and to withstand the test of time. It’s attractive enough to have its place on the Holiday table and will bring back Rosh Hashanah Toddler memories for years to come.

L’Shanah Tovah!

Happy Sweet New Year from the Toddler Class.