Kitten & Puppy Class News from Ms. Terri & Ms. Amber: 9/26/08

LaShanah Tovah!

Hi Moms, Dads and Special Grown-ups,

This has been fantastic week at Playschool!
Ms. Amber and I are thrilled to say that the children are officially having fun times at Preschool!!! We had a virtually tear-free week. We hope you enjoyed the Rosh Hashananh cards we made for you. We’ve been practicing our Apples and Honey song everyday. The words can be found inside the card. We also filled our bellies with sticky apples and honey at each snack time!

This week we finished up with letter A.
We read Apples,Apples by Salina Yoon and The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall with pictures by Shari Halpern. We are excited to try our hands at baking some apple treats when Sukkot rolls around! We are also talking about the change of seasons. We are wishing the trees a Happy Fall and celebrating the changing colors of the leaves by reading Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert. You’ll be seeing many of Ms. Ehlert’s books…she is one of Ms. Terri’s most favorites! We’ll be reading her book Feathers for Lunch as we make birds for letter B.

Don’t forget we are on Holiday this week and return to Playschool on October 2nd. If anyone needs a reminder of the October schedule, it is located below in the 9/18 posting.

We hope you have a wonderful week!
Shabbat Shalom and LaShanah Tovah,
Ms. Terri and Ms. Amber

The Playschool will be closed for Rosh Hashanah on Monday, September 29, Tuesday, September 30, and Wednesday, October 1.

Ms. Gloria & Friends: News from the 3-4 Year Old Class

On Monday, we read Sammy Spider’s First Rosh Hashanah by Sylvia A. Rouss. Traditionally, apples and honey are eaten on Rosh Hashanah for a sweet, new year. The boys and girls enjoyed trying apples dipped in honey for their snack. We learned a song called, “I Dip the Apples in the Honey”. For our art project, each group of children painted a mural for our classroom bulletin board. They will make a forest scene of trees filled with foxes and skunks. During our calendar activity, we noted that Monday was the first day of fall. The boys and girls learned that the leaves will soon be red, yellow, and orange and that the days and nights will soon become cooler.

On Tuesday, we read Happy New Year, Beni by Jane Breskin Zalben. We learned that “L’Shanah Tovah” means “to a sweet, good year”. Each Tuesday, we make a letter of the week art project. For the letter R, the children painted the “R” red and decorated it with apples and a bee’s hive, to represent the honey, for Rosh Hashanah. All of the letter of the week projects are displayed on a classroom bulletin board for the week. We also learned a song for fall called, “I’m a Nut”.

On Wednesday, some of the children made entries in their journals. They decorated fall leaves to put on their first journal page. The other group of children read Nuts to You! by Lois Ehlert. In yoga class, Miss Kim began with yoga breathing and asked the children to name their favorite things to play with. She tried to trick them as they played “Yoga Simon Says”, too. The children took an imaginary trip to the farm. They each posed as tiny little seeds that grew with the help of the warm, golden sun and the rain. Each child said the name of the fruit that they posed as, and then, they pretended to eat those fruits. They positioned themselves as tables and chairs as they enjoyed the fruits that grew on the farm.

On Thursday, we read The Robobots by Matt Novak. For our letter R project, the children designed their own robots. They will also be displayed in our classroom. We sang songs for Rosh Hashanah and fall, too. The boys and girls learned another fall song called “Gray Squirrel”. On Friday, we read Apples and Honey by Jonny Zucker and Jan Barger Cohen. Our project was to make Rosh Hashanah cards for our families.

Thank you to Lucas, Owen, Harry, Thomas, and Hayden for being our super “kids of the day” this week. As a reminder, the Playschool will be closed on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for Rosh Hashanah. We will be closing at 12:30 PM on Wednesday, October 8 so there will be no Afterschool Arts Club on that day. The Playschool will be closed on Thursday, October 9 for Yom Kippur.

This week, in Afterschool Arts, the children made baked, stuffed apples in Cooking Club, they did an experiment with water in Science Club, for Art Club, they made skunks that are similar to the ones in the book, Mole’s Hill by Lois Ehlert, in Movement Club, the children participated in aerobic movement and had fun dancing with crazy hats, and in Music Club, the children sang, danced, and played musical instruments. In addition, during each afternoon, our teachers read a story to the children, and weather permitting, the children ride bikes outdoors. Please let us know if you would like your child to attend. It’s a great way for the children to continue their Playschool experience each day!

Next week, we will begin our paintings for the upcoming Art Exhibit on the evening of our Fall Shabbat Dinner, Friday, October 24. More information will be coming soon about this event.

Have a great holiday. L’Shanah Tovah! See you on Thursday, October 2.

Miss Gloria, Miss Allison, Miss Lily, Miss Sophie, and Miss Mindy

Here’s a Rosh Hashanah song that you can sing at home with your children:

I Dip Apples in the Honey

I dip apples in the honey to have a sweet New Year,

And when I am all finished, I stick from ear to ear.

My hand sticks to my nose,

My fingers to my toes,

My elbow’s sticking to my knee,

And that’s the way it goes!

I dip apples in the honey to have a sweet New Year.

News from Miss.Ali and Miss.C

We finished another great week of Pre-K! This week our unit was the Fall!

The children picked their own leaves from our courtyard and glued them on trees, we made leaf imprints using fall colored paints, created a silly apple puppet, and even illustrated and described what we like to do during the fall!

We completed the letter "F" in our Handwriting Without Tears workbooks and made an "F" collage using magazine clippings. The children are getting used to our mathematics and language arts practice as well. This week we learned how to "sky write" the number 2 in the air, and practiced writing it on our worksheets. In language arts, we learned to pick out pictures that were the SAME and pictures that were DIFFERENT. We even had some practice reading SAME and DIFFERENT words!

Our busy bees are getting a lot of practice with new jobs every week! Each child will have the opportunity to fullfill a different job role every other week. When the children do not have a job for the week, their busy bee is resting.

This week in drama, Miss. Vanda discussed what it meant to be a hero and a villian. The children had a wonderful time giving Miss. Vanda examples of heros and villians they knew from movies, television and books. Each child got to dress up as either a hero or a villian, and act out how each character acts. They had a fun time, and ended the drama class with a game of hero/villian freeze dance!


This week we read the following books:

Leaf Man-Lois Ehlert

Fall is for Friends- Suzy Spafford

Who Stole the Apple?- Sigrid Heuck

The Runaway Pumpkin- Richard Lewis

It's Fall- Linda Glaser


A BIG THANK YOU to our Royal Reader of the week Ira Kauderwood!! Ira brought in a great story for the children and did a fantastic job acting it out for us!


Please be aware that October is a crazy month with our calendar!


We are closed Monday Sept 29- Wednesday Oct 1st for Rosh Hashanah. School Resumes Thursday.

We are closed at 12:30 Wednesday October 8th and Thursday October 9th for Yom Kippur. School Resumes Friday.

We are closed Monday October 13th- Wednesday October 15th for Columbus Day and Sukkot

We are closed Tuesday October 21st- Wednesday October 22nd for Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret


Have a sweet new year!

Miss. Ali and Miss. C

Ms. Gloria & Friends: News from the 3-4 Year Old Class

Each morning, after free playtime, the children participate in circle time activities. They sing two songs, “Boker Tov”, which means “Good Morning” and “The More We Get Together”. It is during this time that we talk to the children about the things that they need to know for the day, like their art project or the letter of the week. The “kid of the day” gets to count the kids, first by counting the pictures of the children who are in school, and second, by counting the children in the circle. After counting, the “kid of the day” shows his/her Show and Tell. After circle time, all of the children move over to the calendar to find out the day and date, the weather, and to dress the Weather Bear. On Monday, we read Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown. Our arts and crafts project was to make a farm with cows, pigs, and sheep. We also read Color Farm by Lois Ehlert. In this book, the children identified farm animals, shapes, and colors. We sang “Old Macdonald Had a Farm”, too.

On Tuesday, we read Fall is for Friends by Suzy Spafford. Our letter of the week art project was to decorate the letter F with fall leaves and acorns. The children also put a picture of a fish on the letter F. As an added feature, they painted the letter F the color fuchsia, a combination of the colors, pink, red, and purple. On Wednesday, one group of children began to work in their journals. For their first journal entry, the children used markers to color fall leaves. Please let us know if you would like to see your child’s journal. The children will be making journal entries every other Wednesday before yoga. The other group of children read Feathers for Lunch by Lois Ehlert. In yoga class, Miss Kim began the lesson with yoga breathing as she asked the children to name their favorite colors. The boys and girls learned how to play “Red Light, Yoga Light”. The children made yoga poses to thank the warm, golden sun and to slither like snakes as they moved closer and closer to Miss Kim. The boys and girls took an imaginary trip to the farm. They learned how to “yoga” travel by train. On their trip, they saw cows, ducks, and pigs. They made large sandwiches and sipped a drink through a straw before traveling back home on the train.

On Thursday, we read We Are All Alike. . . We Are All Different by the Cheltenham Elementary School Kindergartners. This book is filled with photographs and drawings of children and their families. In the book, we learn how children are like each other and how children are also different from each other. This book tells about the differences in families, in the foods that people eat, where people live, and what children like to play. Our art project was for each child to create their own self portrait. Their art work will be displayed in the Social Hall and all of the children will complete this project. On Friday, we read Mole’s Hill by Lois Ehlert. For our letter F art project, the boys and girls made a fox. We will be displaying some of our animal art work on our classroom walls in the next few days.

Thank you to Jack L., Ciampone, Annalise, Max M., and Jonnah for being our super “kids of the day” this week. Thank you to all of our Playschool parents who have signed onto our Playschool blog. All newsletters, flyers, and special events will be posted on the blog. Please check the information each week to see what is happening in the Playschool. Next week, we will begin learning about fall, Rosh Hashanah, and letter R. We will also taste apples and honey to celebrate a sweet new year. This week, in Afterschool Arts, the children made pizzas, they learned about caterpillars, they created a pizza art project, they played an obstacle course game and rode scooters, they sang fall and Shabbat songs, and they listened to a story each day. There are still spots available in any of our Afterschool Arts Clubs. It’s a great way to continue having fun in the Playschool. Please let us know if you would like your child to give it a try! Have a great weekend!

Miss Gloria, Miss Allison, Miss Lily, Miss Sophie, and Miss Mindy



October Calendar


The Playschool will be closed for Rosh Hashanah on Monday, September 29, Tuesday, September 30, and Wednesday, October 1.

There will be no Afterschool Arts Club on Wednesday, October 8. The Playschool will close at 12:30 PM.

We will be closed for Yom Kippur on Thursday, October 9.

On Monday, October 13, Tuesday, October 14, and Wednesday, October 15, the Playschool will be closed for Columbus Day and for Sukkot.

We will also be closed on Tuesday, October 21 for Shemini Atzeret and on Wednesday, October 22 for Simchat Torah.

On Friday, October 24, we will have our Fall Shabbat Dinner and Art Exhibit. More information will be forthcoming soon.

Friday, October 31 is Grandparent’s Day for the 3 – 4 Year Old Class and the Pre-K. You will be receiving more information about this special event soon.

Pre-K News for week of September 15th

We had a busy and enjoyable second week of school! Our unit this week was "All About Me!" The children had a great (and messy) time decorating personalized tee shirts, which they created just for themselves, answered some silly questions for our "WANTED" Ad and continued to learn about Healthy Living! We learned a few new hand washing poems and traced our hands for our project. We also made faces out of paper plates and attached a movable hand with a tissue, so we knew what to use when we sneezed!

Monday was the day for new jobs for our busy bees! All the children were so excited to come in and see if they had a job for the week. Thanks to all of our bees, for a job well done!


The children have finished reviewing their colors and shapes in our Handwriting Without Tears workbooks and started some Language Arts and Mathematics practice. Our letter of the week this week was letter "L." We practiced "air drawing" the letter, and then learned the steps on how to make a letter "L" in our workbooks. We ended the week making a colorful "L" word list and listed all the letter "L" words we knew.

Miss. Vanda joined our class on Thursday for drama. We were so excited to have her back again to do some more acting! This week the children learned the words Stage and Scene. They had the opportunity to act out the Three Little Pigs, and create their own unique poses! They also received some more practice acting out different emotions such as silly, grumpy, sleepy and excited.

We danced our little hearts our with our pre-school aerobic CD all week long! The children had lots of energy and showed us some crazy and "different" dance steps! Be sure to ask for a demo at home!!

Shabbat with Cantor Carl ended our week Friday. We sang some wonderful shabbat songs, learned some new hebrew words and did some dancing around!

A big THANK YOU to Marjorie Drasnin and Madeleine Becker for being our Special Royal Readers the past 2 weeks! They shared some fantastic stories with the children and we enjoyed having them as guests in our classroom.

Our book list for this week was as follows:

Monday- When I was Little- Jamie Lee Curtis

Tuesday- Wash, Scrub, Brush- Manning and Granstrom

Wednesday- It's Hard To Be Five- Jamie Lee Curtis

Thursday- No Hugs Till Saturday- Julie Downing

Friday- Little Miss Giggles- Roger Hargrave



Please check your children's folder's daily for any work or notes being sent home.

*The playschool will be closed on on SEPT 29-OCT 1st. Playschool will resume on Thursday.

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Miss. Ali

Kitten & Puppy Class News from Ms. Terri & Ms. Amber 9/18/08

Hi Moms, Dads and Special Grown-ups,

This has been a great week at Playschool!
Ms. Amber and I had lots of fun watching friends ride bikes outside in our courtyard. The weather has been absolutely perfect for it! The children were great listeners. They know they have to stop at our stop sign and at the kangaroo statue. We also talked about how we are not permitted to climb on the kangaroo statues during school time. We also talked about waiting for our grown-ups in our bike riding area. It is dangerous to run past the stop sign or the kangaroo statues to greet our grown-ups because there are cars driving by. Please help in supporting this idea by explaining the car issue to the children and by walking all the way up to the children when we are outside. They are always so excited to greet you...they could run head long into a potentially dangerous situation.

This week we had time to start talking about the Alphabet. We are beginning with letter A. We are painting a letter A and gluing some asparagus, apples and ants on it!
This week in the Puppy Class, we had two friends whose name started with letter A, Alex and Avery...so we glued them on too! We will do this with all of the letters, so we may do them out of order to be sure that each child gets a letter with their picture on it.

Our letter A book is Ten Apples up on Top by Theo. Le Sieg. We laughed so hard when the apples fell off of the heads of the lion, the dog and the tiger! We are also reading Bruno Munari's ABC.
This book has lots of great tongue twisters in it, like "crow, cup , candle, cat, cage." The children worked on their remembering skills repeating the words fast and slow.

Please remember that our class meeting time for the week of 9/22-9/26 is 8:30-11:30.
A full day!!!
We have lots of Holidays coming up.
If anyone needs a reminder, the October schedule is below.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Shabbat Shalom,
Ms. Terri and Ms. Amber

October Calendar

The Playschool will be closed for Rosh Hashanah on Monday, September 29, Tuesday, September 30, and Wednesday, October 1.

There will be no Afterschool Arts Club on Wednesday, October 8. The Playschool will close at 12:30 PM.

We will be closed for Yom Kippur on Thursday, October 9.

On Monday, October 13, Tuesday, October 14, and Wednesday, October 15, the Playschool will be closed for Columbus Day and for Sukkot.

We will also be closed on Tuesday, October 21 for Shemini Atzeret and on Wednesday, October 22 for Simchat Torah.

On Friday, October 24, we will have our Fall Shabbat Dinner and Art Exhibit. More information will be forthcoming soon.

Friday, October 31 is Grandparent’s Day for the 3 – 4 Year Old Class and the Pre-K. You will be receiving more information about this special event soon.

Ms. Gloria Welcomes the 3 - 4 Year Old Class

Welcome to the 3- 4 year old class. The boys and girls had a fantastic first day of preschool. They were very excited to see their friends, make new friends, play with our toys, read books, paint at the easels, color, put puzzles together, and interact with the teachers. On the first day, they got a feel for some of the things that they will be doing each day, like putting their pictures on the picture boards, singing two morning welcome songs, counting the kids, and looking at the calendar and dressing the Weather Bear. The children learned the S words, September, school, and sunny from the calendar. We read Starting School by Franzeska Ewart and Leonie Shearing. For our arts and crafts project, the children made placemats that they will use on Fridays when they are eating their Shabbat snack. They also enjoyed bike-riding outdoors on such beautiful day. After lunch, we thanked our "kids of the day" and "parent of the day" and we sang "Shalom Chavarim", which means "Goodbye My Friends". What a fantastic way to start the school year!

On Tuesday, we read My New School by Harriet Hains. Each Tuesday, the children decorate the letter of the week. For the letter S, the children put a school, school bus, star, and sparkles on the letter. The letter of the week projects will be hanging up each week on a classroom bulletin board. Please take a few moments to look at the art work of the children. We also played a game called, "Who Has Come To School Today?"

Wednesday is our yoga day with Miss Kim. Before the class, we read Little Yoga by Rebecca Whitford and Martina Selway to introduce yoga movements to the children. Miss Kim begins each class with yoga breathing. As the children take yoga breaths, they lift a yoga ball into the air. Miss Kim asked each child to say their name and their age after they tried yoga breathing. The children played "Yoga Simon Says" and they took an imaginary trip to the beach using yoga movements. At the end of the class, the children lie on their backs to practice shavasana, a relaxation posture.

On Thursday, we read Show and Tell by Anne Rockwell. In our class, the "kid of the day" has the opportunity to bring in a show and tell object. Please ask your child to select a toy or book to bring in to show the class. At circle time, he/she will be able to show and tell the other children what they have brought in. For our art project, the children sponge painted their journal covers with fall leaves. In the journals, the children will illustrate drawings that will depict the seasons, holidays, letters of the week, and topics that we learn about in class. The boys and girls will make entries in their journals every other Wednesday before yoga.

On Friday, we read Sammy Spider's First Shabbat by Sylvia A. Rouss. For our project, the boys and girls made spiders that looked like Sammy. Each Friday, all of the children in the Playschool celebrate Shabbat together along with Cantor Rebecca Carl. We sing Shabbat songs, dance, and say the Shabbat blessings over the candles, wine (grape juice), and challah.


Thank you to Phoebe, Max L., Laura, Nina, Ava, and Cole for being our super "kids of the day" this week. There are open spots available in our class and in any of the Afterschool Arts Clubs. Please spread the word about our programs to your friends who may be in search of a wonderful preschool for their child. This week, the children really enjoyed spending extra time in our classroom for play and for our programming in Afterschool Arts. The children baked peach pastries, they experimented with things that float and sink, they made Shabbat placemats, they played musical chairs and played musical instruments, they made seahorses for a letter S project, and they sang some of their favorite songs and learned new ones, too.

Have a great weekend and welcome to our new Playschool blog!

Miss Gloria, Miss Allison, Miss Lily, Miss Sophie, and Miss Mindy

This week in Pre-K.....

Hello Parents and Families!

We had a great first week of Pre-K! It was so wonderful to see everyone's smiling faces and the excitement all the children shared being in school. This week our unit was "Back to School." We made a creative back to school collage, using magazine clippings, made placemats for snack time, decorated a "Welcome Back to School necklace" where we had practice writing our names, and discussed and wrote down our classroom rules and consequences..(which all the children took part in creating!) Our science unit was Healthy Eating and Living, which we will continue next week as well. We went over the food pyramid and discussed what it was, read a funny food story and even created a "Healthy Foods, Unheathly Foods" chart.

The children have begun to do some work in their Handwriting Without Tears workbooks, and have learned to listen and follow directions more easily. They absolutely love their busy bee "jobs" and have mastered each one wonderfully..(They take them very seriously!) Thursdays, are exciting because we have Drama! This week the children started their drama experience with Miss. Vanda, where they learned some key vocabulary words such as Theatre, Acting, Stage and Warm-Ups. They learned how to act out different emotions, and even acted out their favorite animals and foods! We are very excited to continue our drama program in the weeks to come. Our Friday's are jammed packed with Shabbat with Cantor Carl and our special Royal Readers!

Please check your child's folder daily, and feel free to correspond through notes, which can be left in their folders. Also, be sure to check the blog for our weeks recap! You can also reach me at abernstein@societyhillsynagogue.org. Looking forward to many more wonderful weeks of school!

Love,
Miss.Ali

This week's poem from Ms. Terri & Ms. Amber

This silly poem can sometimes help with separation anxiety!

SEE YOU LATER, ALIGATOR
AFTER A WHILE, CROCODILE
BYE-BYE, BUTTERFLY
TAKE CARE, BROWN BEAR
TOODLE-OO, KANGAROO
SEE YOU SOON, RACCOON
TIME TO GO, BUFFALO
CAN’T STAY, BLUE JAY
THAT’S THE END, MY FRIEND!

Kitten and Puppy Class News from Ms. Terri and Ms. Amber

Hi Moms, Dads and Special Grown-ups,

Welcome to Society Hill Synagogue Playschool 2008!
Ms. Amber and I are so thrilled to be working together again and we are looking forward to a fantastic year! We have completed our first short week and things are going very well. We are still dealing with some separation anxiety and tears but all of the children are finding moments throughout our day that they are enjoying.

This week we had time for two projects. We played with play-dough and made a giant painting that covered our whole table! We used squares of the painting to decorate our mail boxes and will be putting a square in our mailboxes to take home. We also started to learn some new songs. We sang about “The Little Frogs,” who live in the rain forest and we are learning a song about dipping apples in honey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah.

Our mail boxes (coffee cans!) are located on the large windowsill in the classroom. Each child has a name tag on the front. Please remember to check it at the end of each day.
Sometimes we deliver mail twice a day!!! Though we will communicate mostly on the blog, there will still be art projects, song sheets and a variety of other things to take home.

This week you should have received a sheet that lists all of the parent contact info. Please triple check it to make sure it is correct. Please e-mail Gloria at gparris@societyhillsynagogue.org. if anything still needs to be amended. This week you will receive a sheet that explains all of the upcoming Jewish Holidays, a great good-bye poem (featured above,) a few more songs we sing every day and a super play-dough recipe.

Please remember that our class meeting time for the week of 9/15-9/19 is 8:30-10:30.
We will begin going outside for bike time…weather permitting. It would be great if parents could begin to talk to the children about stopping at the Kangaroo statue and our stop sign!!! We will sing Shalom after Bike time. Now that we are here for longer days,
We will have time for more activities. It may be helpful for you to explain to the children what the schedule usually is.

8:30-9:30 Play time with our toys
9:30-9:45 Clean up time!
9:45- 10:15 Circle Time
a) sing good morning, greeting songs, kid of the day counts children, sing we wish you well to anyone who is absent.
b) Read a story
c) Jumping/yoga/movement/music time
10:15-10:30 Art Projects
10:30-10:40 Wash up/Potty/Change diapers
10:40-11:00 Snack
11:00-11:20 Bike Time…if raining we ride bikes and play in Ms. Gloria’s room!
11:20-11:30 Review the day…sing new song we are learning, we talk about what will we do next time we come to school! good-byes, thank you, we sing SHALOM!

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Shabbat Shalom,

Ms. Terri and Ms. Amber

A Message from Miss. C

Dear Parents,

Just wanted to extend a hello and tell you how thrilled I am to be working at SHS. I know this year will be a great time for families, children and staff alike! Can't wait for the start of school and to meet all of you this year!

=-) Miss. C

Welcome to Pre-K!

I am so excited for the school year to begin! I am looking forward to seeing all of your faces at the start of school next week! It's going to be a terrific year =-)

Miss Ali

Happy Faces at SHS!