Miss Lisa & Morah Mimi - May 24, 2024

 FROM MISS LISA (Scroll down for Judaic News.)

Manipulatives

We had a lot of fine motor and math work in our table choices this week. Connect four worked the pincer grasp and one to one correspondence, as did the light bright, pegboards and push pin activities. I also shaped out some of our puzzles with Miss Deana for some variety. It is really great to see how far the students have come in their abilities. The best part is seeing the growth in their confidence. They approach new puzzles with self confidence rather than insecurity. They may need help once or twice, but they are seeing that the same puzzle skills they use with familiar puzzles can be transferred over to new ones.

 Assessments will be sent home in the upcoming weeks and it is important to note the progress that came from simply letting children play. Their improvement wasn't because of anything I was formally teaching, but because of their natural tendency towards learning. All we need to do is facilitate an environment with developmentally appropriate activities and give them time and space to work while thoroughly enjoying themselves and goals will be reached.

 Graphing

With tremendous work from Miss Bailey we have completed our glorious graph. The students' names are printed horizontally across the bottom and numbers 1-10 are ascending vertically on both sides. Remember this is SUPER preliminary. We are just familiarizing ourselves with the visual of a graph and the concept that it helps us to quantify. We count the buttons on our clothing and even if they don't have any that day they will get a handful of colorful circles to put on the graph above their name. We count as we apply them and work on some of our math vocabulary: less, more, same, most, and total. As long as their interest holds we will be finding all sorts of items to graph in our day.

FROM MORAH MIMI 

This week, we learned the amazing story of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son, Eliezer.   From him, we learn the importance of being kind to one another. When asked how we can show kindness, some student responses included sharing, being gentle, and taking turns with toys. 

We discovered that on Lag B'Omer, we enjoy picnics, bonfires, and singing songs around the fire. The children had fun decorating pieces of wood with watercolors and we enjoyed nature's beauty.

During group time, we went on a pretend picnic, using the song "We're Going on a Picnic," where each child chose a food to add to our basket. Another exciting activity was a music and movement song by Kira Wiley called "Going on a Walk," where we pretended to be bears hiking in the forest. The children were fully engaged and excited.

We sang a lovely song around our pretend fire: "Oh, let’s be friends  and join together, oh, let’s be friends now and forever. Oh Let’s be friends and join together. Oh, let’s be friends cause that’s the Torah way."

Have a Wonderful week and a Shabbat Shalom!