Come join us in our classroom...

We have been singing a winter song asking the question:
What warms me up on a cold, cold day?
A sweater warms me up in a cozy way.

What warms me up on a cold, cold day?
A blanket warms me up in a snuggly way.

What warms me up on a cold, cold day?
Hot chocolate warms me up in a sweet, sweet way.

What warms me up on a cold, cold day?
A hug warms me up in a friendly way.

We continue the song adding in other stanzas of things that help us warm up on a cold winter day.
We have this song on the wall in our library.


To warm us up on a cold day...
We made hot chocolate to drink after playing outdoors. We were cold but the hot drink made us feel so warm. Mmmm the taste, the setting, the atmosphere was so peaceful, so relaxing, so delicious.
In order to drink something hot you need to slow down. Take small sips, blow on the hot drink, patiently wait to drink it up. We are getting into the habit of finding moments to slow down and find happiness in the quietness. It was a very special experience especially for us to enjoy this moment with our friends.


We build on our vocabulary to help us be expressive and descriptive. We use the words like hot or cold to describe different things of different temperature.

We played a game of sorting through various foods that we like to eat, some foods that are hot and some that are cold.





Literature has the power to excite and teach us about so many interesting things.
We have been reading many winter themed books and learning about this cold and quiet season.
Each book shares with us winter ideas either through beautiful illustrations or eloquent words.
There are many things we can take away after reading a good book. Maybe we might even be inspired to write our own story book!
After reading, Snowballs, by Louis Ehlert we were excited to use our creativity to make a snowman or snowlady of our own.
Take a look at the details in each of the children’s work.




Moussia:

“It is a snowlady.

Her mouth is from corns.

Her nose is red.

She has a pink and yellow eyes.

She is wearing a pink dress.”

Elisheva:

“I put eyes and nose. I put a scarf on his neck.

He has buttons down on his feet.

He is wearing boots in the snow.”

Jasmin:

"It is my snowman.
He has hair on his head
and he has two hands."

Elana:

“My snowman has a hat on his head.

He has a button nose.”

Delia:

“It is a Snowgirl. I put six buttons on her.

She has two arms. She has hair on her head.

I used beans for her eyes.”

Carly:

“I put buttons and some beads on the scarf.

The snowman has a belly.

He has a red mouth and pink arms.

I used little ballies and squeezy things for his eyes.

He has colorful hair. He has a blanket because

He is cold. I like my snowman.”

Kristina:

“He has eyes.

I put corn for his mouth.

He has buttons.

And he has boots on.”

Olivia:

“My snowman has a green nose and eyes.

He has hair on the top of his head.

It has two arms.

He has a scarf for the snow because

it is cold. He has two boots and buttons.”

David:

“I made a snowman

He has eyes.

Snowman’s nose is blue.”

Shalom:

“I put hair all over his head.

He has brown boots on his feet.

He has eyes and nose and cheeks.

He has an ear on his head. I need to

give him another ear so he can have

two ears. He has buttons that are for

his hands.”

Winter time is a quiet time, winter time is a relaxing time. During winter the plants and trees stop growing, now is the time where they just relax. They do not use their energy to grow leaves or flowers, they rest. Many animals are resting during this time as well.
We have been personalizing this message of the importance of the need to relax. Our bodies too need to slow down sometimes. We do this when we let our bodies rest and take a nap. Some people enjoy relaxing and reading a book others might enjoy the softness of quiet music. These and other methods help us relax and allow our bodies this time that it needs.
This idea of 'relaxness' also translates that if something happen that we do not like we can learn how to help our bodies not get so worked up but handle it in a relaxed manner.

Enjoy your weekend, hope it is a relaxing one.
Shabbat Shalom
Morah Batsheva

Welcome back to school everyone.
We hope you had an enjoyable, relaxing winter break with your family.
Now that we have settled back into school come in and find all the interesting and fun things we have been doing in class.

The winter spirit evokes a calmness a relaxing energy.
The outdoors is in a mode of rest, a mode of quietness.
The trees are resting; not growing leaves, flowers or produce.
The ground is resting. The animals are quietly resting in their homes or trying to stay warm through the season.

We learnt a quiet winter poem that we say together as a class. As we say the poem we use our quiet soft voices to evoke inside of us this feeling of quietness.
''Snowflakes on my shoulders,
Snowflakes on the ground,
Snowflakes all around me,
But they never make a sound."

This is a great opportunity to explore the topic of peacefulness and quietness and see how it relates to ourselves.
We have been learning over the year that we need to take care of ourselves to help us grow healthy and strong.
There are times when our bodies need energy and so we take care of ourselves as we eat and drink.
There are times when we need something, so we learn how to be independent and do it, or ask others for help.
There are times when we need to listen to our bodies and stop what we are doing to go to the bathroom.
There are also times when we need to let ourselves just be. Be relaxed, take a break and have quietness. So together in class we will learn this value of being relaxed. We will explore different ways we can give ourselves this experience that it needs.
Please share with us what you might do with your family to enjoy the quiet moments,
or help yourself relax.

Experiencing the peacefulness of winter by taking a walk down to the river.

We are very happy to welcome two new families to the Zimmer Preschool community and to our class, the Kominsky and Lapetina families. We will soon be handing out an updated class list so everyone can be in contact with each other outside of school.

Olivia Lapetina Elana Kominsky

Have an enjoyable, relaxing weekend,
Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Batsheva

Happy Chanukah Everyone.
We have been enjoying each day of Chanukah together.
I would like to share with you the Chanukah story as it was told in class.
The purpose of teaching the story of Chanukah is to give the children an understanding of the events that happened a long time ago that caused joy and celebration and a need to dedicate time for a holiday.
Here is the story...

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

We gain a deeper understanding by learning with hands on experiences:

As we experience the fall season, we begin to feel the effects of the climate changing.
We feel the cold temperature and the cold wind outdoors. One way we adapt is by dressing in warmer clothes.

But what about the animals where their home is the cold outdoors, how do they respond to the climate changes?
We have discussed some of the animals that live near us in New Jersey and their behavior.
Today we witnessed how one animal, the horse, adapts to the cold weather. To our benefit, we had a wonderful opportunity to see first hand how the horse prepares itself for the fall and winter cold.

Puck, a miniature horse of the Tendler family visited us in school today. He has long thick brown fur, cozy and warm for the winter. However he did not always have long hair. We saw pictures taken of Puck in the summer time. Here we noticed that Puck’s fur on his back and tummy was very short. Some of us remember when he came to visit us in camp over the summer. His body knows that colder months are ahead and his fur grows long to protect him. Then when the warmer weather starts to approach Puck will begin to lose this long warm cozy fur.

Here are some of the things the children enjoyed about having Puck.
"I like to brush his long hair."
"I like to pet him, he is soft."
"He was running so fast."
"I was brushing his back."
"He had so much dirt that was so smelly on the bottom of his foot."
"I like giving him carrots and apples."
"I like to touch him."

Listening to some new and interesting information about Puck and other horses.

We quickly became comfortable around Puck. Here Delia is feeding Puck one of his favorite treats - carrots.

One thing horses like to do is run fast. We watched as Puck ran in our school playground. His hair is so long you can see it 'flying' as he runs!

Now that Puck's hair is long to keep him warm during the cold months there is lots to brush. There are different size brushes for the different parts of his body. Puck especially likes when he gets a message.

The children are gaining a sense of respect and connection to animal life from these encounters with Puck.
Thank you again Rachel for giving the children such a positive and educational experience.

See everyone at the Thanksgiving Feast on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m.
Morah Batsheva

I am really enjoying my time in the Toddler Classroom. Not only do I love interacting with children this age, but I find it fascinating to stand back and observe them. Each child’s distinct personality really shines through and adds so much to the group.

Providing a sense of emotional safety is such a cornerstone of our program’s philosophy. We feel this sense of safety when we are “in the know”, when we feel part of the plan. When we feel “acted upon” it feels unsafe and icky! To that end, when Morah Batsheva gave birth to her baby daughter (Mazal Tov!), we discussed with the children why Morah Batsheva is not here. The words we used, “Right now, Morah Batsheva is taking care of her new baby, and when the baby gets a little older, Morah Batsheva will come back to our classroom.” That way, the children feel in control of – thus, emotionally safe with – their experience here at school.

Fall is in full swing! Over the past two weeks we have been learning about, exploring and experiencing fall all around us. Especially, toddlers engage their full senses as they experience and understand the world. Not only by sight, but through touch smell, taste and sound!

One day, as we opened the door to go outside, a gust of wind greeted the children, taking off many, many leaves from the trees. This cascade of leaves fell on the children, and they responded with glee. They instinctively held out their arms to catch the falling leaves. Their sense of joy was infectious. (I told you I love kids this age!!)

Our class is in the process of creating a book, that documents our multi-sensory Fall experience. We are also honing an assortment of skills in the process.

Here is a sampling;

Fine motor skills

For our book we are:

- Holding, dipping, spreading a fine glue brush.

- Tearing paper.

- Picking up, collecting things from the outdoors (leaves, acorns, pinecones).

- Painting with the objects we collected.

Literacy:

- Continuous dialogue while outdoors

- Seeing that both words and pictures on a page create a story book

- When illustrating our page, we want to still be able to see the words so we can read them.

- How we hold, and turn the pages in a book.

Logical/Mathematical Reasoning:

- Sorting through and choosing appropriate clothing to wear in the Fall time.

- (Causality): Rubbing- placing the textured, detailed leaves under the paper to reveal the details on the paper above-watching the results when rubbing a crayon on its side.

- Big and small representation (size distinctions) (I am also beginning to use the word “medium”, to add to the challenge.)

- Sorting and grouping our findings on our nature walks.

- Color recognition with leaves.

Visual spatial skill:

On this page you can see green grass on the ground, tall trees and clouds in the sky. For our children to be able to create this, we needed to observe and dialogue. We asked questions such as:

Where is the sky, on top or below?

Where does grass grow?

The way we put questions forth to the children is in a respectful, open manner, encouraging them to look further than their initial observations. This strengthens their skill and they become more aware and observant.

The children were looking at the leaves they had collected once on our nature walk. We noticed when we touched them, they felt dry and hard. Hmm I wonder what will happen if we scrunch them in our hands?

Crunch! They crumbled into small pieces. We went outside and caught some leaves that were falling from the tree. What do these leaves feel like?

“We can’t crunch them”, “they are soft”, the children noted.We brought them inside and compared the dry ones and the fresh ones. I wonder what we could do with our crumbled leaves? “Lets make a picture”, one child said. After a brief discussion, Morah drew an outline of a maple leaf on paper and the children had a fun time gluing and then sprinkling the crushes leaves onto the shape. Come take a look at the finishes product on our classroom wall!

We have been working on our numbers. We played a number matching game. We counted how many leaves there were on the card and matched it to the correct number. At circle time, we like to count how many friends are in school that day. Sometimes we use our fingers to help us count.

Over the next few weeks, we will continue expanding our Fall book, and continue our exploration of the world around us during the Fall season.

Morah Chaya

Sukkot Holiday Hands-On Preparation

The first month of the Jewish year is full of holidays.

From our previous experiences we know that holidays are special days and therefore we need to prepare for this special time and do special things when the holiday is here.

Sukkot is the upcoming holiday and we are getting ready.

We went to visit the big sukkah that is outside our school. The sukkah has walls that go all around. It has a roof that is made from branches that when we look up we could still see the sky.

We were excited to be inside this new place called a sukkah!

We went back to our classroom to make a sukkah where we could play and act out the holiday.

We first measured the area where we were going to build.

We used a very long stick to measure the area and realized we needed a very big piece of paper the size of one stick plus some more.

We got our paper ready and marked off where we need to cut. We ready to make the walls for the sukkah.



A sukkah that we use for the holiday is usually not built from paper. Together we imagined what would happen to our paper sukkah if it was outside and the strong wind would blow or if it would rain.

But for our purpose to have an inside sukkah it would be a great way to make a sukkah.

The children used sticky tape to attach the walls together.

Tape can be tricky to hold and maneuver sometimes getting stuck to itself or our fingers.

It was important for us to try to understand how the tape works.


We were ready to collect branches to use for the roof of the sukkah. Together we went to the beautiful forest behind our school to see what we could find.

There were many branches to find. There were branches on the trees and also some fallen branches on the forest floor. The fallen branches were the most appropriate ones to use since we did not want to disturb or hurt any of the trees.

We found a very large branch- we were curious to see how tall it was. We measured it against our bodies and the Morahs. It was so tall that it was taller than us!







Here are our findings.

We are ready to go back to the classroom to use the branches for our sukkah.






Where is the roof?

It is up.

We tried to reach as high as the roof to place the branches on top.











Now we were ready to make decorations.

We used shiny paper called silver foil to color and then rip to small pieces. This turned out to be a beautiful effect. ripping the silver foil is a great activity to strengthen our little muscles in our fingers. Tearing is also an introduction to understanding the use of scissors.

With our sukkah ready and decorations in place we are ready for the holiday to begin.

song:

tune: London Bridge

Sukkot is a holiday, a holiday, a holiday,

Sukkot is a holiday a special day.

Happy Sukkot

Morah Batsheva