What's New:
The Shining Stars finished no nonsense “N” this week. We enjoy and appreciate all the books and treats you send in.

On January 4, 2010 we will be on “O” week, please talk to your children and help them to focus on “O” week. When you give them objects or pictures please keep it simple and help them to understand what the object or word is.

Books we Enjoy:
My “N” Book  The Nicest Newt  Noah’s Ark  Fancy Nancy  Hanukah 
Spin the Dreidel Have a little Driedel  This Is the Dreidel
Something from Nothing  Hanukkah   Dinosaur on Hanukkah

Fun in our Centers:
This week we continued our unit on Chanukah.
We made our special gifts for our families which were sent home on Wednesday. The children love to play Chanukah and dreidel. This week we made our own dreidels out of clay, we let them dry, and then hand painted them with watercolors.

Cookies, cookies everywhere. We baked cookies for our Hanukah tin, we used Hanukah cookie cutters and editable colored markers to decorate our creations. Thanks to Carly’s mom.We had more cookies this week as well. We also used to cookies cutters and painted with paint brushes and ate them all up after lunch. Thanks to Ava’s mom, for helping us do the baking today as well.

Special activities:
Science this week was planting and growing. Ms. C showed taught us what plants need to grow, sun, water and air. Each child was given his own cup of soil and a pinch of grass seeds, and we added a toy lizard or snake, and then water and lid. Now that we put the lid on we keep the water enclosed with vapor all we need is sun.

Reminders to Parents:
We would like to recycle your Chanukah wrapping paper. If you open your gifts, could you save the paper and bring it into us, (even if it is after the break.)
We sent home all the extra clothes clothes from your child’s cubby, please bring in some new ones after vacation.
Your children have “Homework”, we gave them some sheets to work on please sit with your children while they are completing these.

Special thanks to:
Carly for cookie decorating kit.
Evan for Nilla wafers which we added some nutella and it was so much fun to make little sandwiches.
Evan for donating notepad.
Mia for donating recyclables for us to use.
Myles for delicious hot noodle kugel.
Ava for donating classroom games.
Ava’s mom for helping us do last minute baking.

Happy Chanukah
Happy and Healthy New Year

Ms. Rhea & Ms. Michelle

Hello Butterflies! As we finish up our Thanksgiving unit, the children are getting ready for the Thanksgiving celebration coming up on Monday, November 23^rd. Please join us at 11 am in the sanctuary, where we will enjoy songs from the classes, as well as a special treat from Head Start, our guests for the morning. After the performances, the children will head into the chapel for a Thanksgiving feast, where they will be able to taste the traditional foods that we have been talking about. You are invited to stay while your child eats lunch. You may take your child home after lunch, or keep them at school until regular dismissal. If you choose to come back to get them, please walk them back to the classroom to say goodbye.

To get ready for this special day, and to learn the important values of Thanksgiving, we read many books about the holiday such as, “Thanks for Thanksgiving,” by Julie Markes, “Clifford’s Thanksgiving,” by Norman Bridwell, and “My Thanksgiving,” by Tomie dePaolo.

We concentrated on four specific areas: being thankful, family, turkeys, and Thanksgiving foods.

Fine motor activities included peeling stickers and painting with feathers (these paintings are hanging outside the classroom). Using feathers to paint strengthens hand-eye coordination and also provides a sensory experience, which is very important at this age. For gross motor we strutted like turkeys and tossed square beanbags, our shape of the month. Language skills were enhanced by reading the books and making turkey sounds. Ask your children what sound the turkey makes – you will be listening to it for a while - they can’t seem to stop!

For snack we ate graham crackers (Brown and square, our color and shape for the month) and we drank a little chocolate milk as well.

Math skills included folding paper plates in half, and counting on the felt board with “Five Little Turkeys.” Another cute activity involved the children getting a felt feather in a different color, and Mr. Turkey, who lost his feathers, got them back as we read the story. Each child got to put his/her feather on the turkey as their color was called.

Cantor B practiced our Thanksgiving songs with us to get us ready for the program on Monday. We are sending well wishes to him, since he will be out for a few weeks – we wish him well!

Being thankful is a hard concept for the children to understand. We went around the circle and a few of them were able to verbalize what they were thankful for. By next year, they will have this down-pat! All in all, Thanksgiving is about enjoying time with family and friends, being thankful, eating delicious food, and thinking about others. Hopefully some of these concepts will sink in as you enjoy the holiday with your children.

Don’t forget this Sunday, November 22^nd from 10-2 is TBA’s Holiday Boutique – come get your holiday shopping done early! See you on Monday, November 23rd for the Thanksgiving celebration, and have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends. School will resume on Monday November 30^th. Shabbat Shalom, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Ms. Deanna and Ms. Claire

Shalom Bumblebeezzz family, So much for fooling our intruder…..you know where this is going, but lots of the flowers and parsley seeds are growing beautifully. We are happy as can beezzz!

This week was Dental week and we learned that teeth are for biting FOOD! As you can imagine we had lots of fun with this one; we talked about the importance of brushing our teeth after we eat, before we go to sleep, and when we wake up. We did a project which demonstrates what are good and what not so good to eat. The beez understood that candy and gum are NOT good. I am sure that next time you will offer them some they will say: NO! It's not good for my teeth!.....ahhhh, wishful thinking!

This week High Tech visited; we learn how to balance items on a scale; each beez had a scale and the opportunity to experiment with different little shapes; they added or subtracted them until they balanced the scale. They were amazed and happy to do so. Our beez had to use their math skill as well as coordination. They did lots of thinking while identifying colors and shapes; they also needed to be patient while waiting for the scale to balance or if some adjustments needed to be made; Our beez are ready to lead the world with all their knowledge.

Coming soon are two wonderful holidays; Purim, a fun holiday which we celebrate with yummy hamentuchen! and Passover with lots of foods like…..Matzah! We have lots to learn and do and not so much time, so bare with us!

Please bring the items for our Shalach Manot baskets by Wed. – we will send the baskets home on Friday.

Please join us for our Purim Parade at 9:10a.m. on Friday, March 6^th. Stay to celebrate Shabbat and our Purim puppet show in the sanctuary. Don’t forget to come to the Temple’s Purim Carnival on Sunday, March 8th at 11:00a.m. There will be lots of games for preschoolers. Look for the free tickets next week!

Mrs. Ruti and Miss Elizabeth

Ducklings parents,
We had a short but purrfect week! We continued our pet week by talking about cats. During circle time we introduced the children to “Grey,” a stuffed cat and encouraged them to explore him and make cat sounds. The Ducklings had a chance to play a “Cat-Yarn” match game. We placed colored cats on the carpet. The children had to match the cats to their corresponding colored balls of yarn. The children also had the opportunity to find matching pairs of kitten’s mittens. During center time the Ducklings had fun putting together two-piece pet puzzles. We also encouraged them to play with the veterinarian kit in the dramatic play area. They thought it was humorous when I took the kitty out of his cage and took its temperature and blood pressure. I encouraged the children to play doctor and give the cat a check-up as well. We even invited the children to visit the science center to play with “Grey.” They had fun brushing him, playing with his cat toys, and feeding him. The children also explored play-dough with cat shaped cookie cutters in the art center. The Ducklings enjoyed listening to a cat’s dilemma of where to sleep in the book “Cat is Sleepy” by Kitamura. They also had lots of fun putting mittens onto a kitten as they listened to the felt-board story: “My Kitten’s Mittens.” The Ducklings had a chance to practice their fine motor skills as they used yarn to paint. They dipped the yarn into paint and then ran it across the paper to create a design. The children also painted glue onto a paper plate and created a yarn collage.

On Wednesday and Friday the Ducklings had the opportunity to exercise their large muscles as they enjoyed creative movement/dance with Ms. Yael. They danced with scarves to Lion King Music. On Wednesday Ms. Marlena held a jumping session in honor of “Jump Rope for the Heart.” The Ducklings had fun jumping forward, backward, and side-to-side. They even learned how to do jumping jacks. Ms. Marlena had to perform CPR on Ms. Brenda and Ms. Laurie since they were unable to keep pace with the children!

We ended the week with our usual Shabbat celebration. The children had fun singing: “God Is In…” God was in the blue sky, everywhere, and even in our hearts!

Shabbat Shalom!

Ms. Laurie, Ms. Marlena, Ms. Brenda