Friday, March 12, 2010 Letter of the Week: Y

On Monday, we read Sammy Spider's First Passover by Sylvia A. Rouss. Sammy Spider learns how the Shapiro family celebrates Passover by preparing for the seder. The seder is the dinner that is held on the first two nights of Passover. During a seder, the story of the Jews' freedom is told, prayers are said, and songs are sung. We also have been reading about the story of Passover in My Very Own Haggadah by Judyth Robbins Saypol and Madeline Wikler. This book is a simplified seder sevice written for preschool children. For our art project, the boys and girls made seder plates. On the seder plate is a hard-boiled egg, which represents a sign of new life, the lamb bone, to represent the lambs that were killed to mark an X over the Hebrew homes, salt water, which stands for the tears shed by slaves, parsley for the spring, bitter herbs for the bitterness of slavery, charoset which represents the mortar used to make bricks, and matzah, the bread that did not have time to rise when the Hebrews left Egypt.

On Tuesday, we read The Way to Captain Yankee's by Anne Rockwell. Miss Calico decides to visit Captain Yankee. She tries to find his home by following a map. Unfortunately, she gets lost. She looks at her map again and follows it carefully to find Captain Yankee's home on Pebble Point. We learned these letter Y words: yes, yak, yoga, yesterday, yogurt, yawn, yell, yo-yo, yellow, yarn, yard, yummy, and you. For our letter Y art project, the boys and girls made a yak, a long-haired animal used to transport goods through the mountains.

On Wednesday, the journal group made an xray using a black X and chalk on their journal page and the story group read What is Passover? by Harriet Ziefert. This lift-the-flap story tells how Passover is celebrated in the home. In yoga, Miss Kim asked the children to name their favorite animal as they practiced yoga breathing. Today was yoga game day and the children played "Red Light, Yoga Light", "The Dog and Snake Game", and "Pass the Yoga Ball".

On Thursday, we read This is the Matzah by Abby Levine. Matzah is the flat unleavened bread that is eaten during Passover. The eating of matzah reminds the Jewish people of their ancestors' quick departure from slavery in Egypt when they could not wait for the bread to rise. For our project, the boys and girls made their name tags for the trip to the Art Museum. We had the fabulous opportunity to see the children in the Pre-K class perform an original play called, "The Snow Princess Witch from the Sky Finally has a Birthday". The children chose their own original characters and their drama teacher, Miss Vanda, developed and wrote the play using these characters. The story takes place in a small neighborhood toy store where the toys come to life. The goal of the toys is to have a birthday party for the Snow Princess Witch so that she will be happy and experience the joy of having a birthday party. All of the children did a fantastic job, and maybe, someday, we will see them on Broadway!

On Friday, we read Dinosaur on Passover by Diane Levin Rauchwerger. In this book, an enthusiastic dinosaur visits a family for Passover. For our art project, the boys and girls made locusts to add to our Passover bulletin board. Locusts were one of the ten plagues brought upon the Egyptians.

Have a great weekend,
Miss Gloria, Miss Allison, Miss Sophie, Miss Mindy and Mr. Noah