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.
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.
