3's Newsletter Dec 24

Dear Parents,

Now that we are about half way through the school year I would like to let you know what our class accomplishments are on a whole thus far.

In the morning… all the friends are eager to come in and start the day; we can put our belongings in our cubbies, use our strong fingers to grasp the tab on our coats and hang them up, get busy right away with table time or center time.

During center time, snack time and lunch time… we put our toys away, push in our chairs, throw away our garbage, help with snack time (counting out and giving out the plates, cups and cutlery to our friends), say almost the whole bracha (blessing) on our food by ourselves, say please and thank you, wait our turn most of the time, bring our chair to circle time,

In circle time and table time… we raise our hand for a turn or wait to be called on, circle time songs and activities, some of us can write our name and some letters and draw circles and straight lines. We love to pretend to be Morah and read our favorite books to our friends in school and some of us can even do the whole circle time by memory! We are working very hard to use a scissor correctly and hold a pencil correctly too. We are fascinated when we are painting and see two or three colors mix together and know what the new color will be. We have more control over the glue bottle and have learned not to turn the glue sticks way up high to waste them.

As we are growing… many of our friends have also grown in the area of using the bathroom and are out of diapers and pull ups, which is a very big accomplishment! We are also working on not taking a friends toy from their hand even if we want it very, very badly. We have to use our words and ask and may have to wait a few minutes too.

We have come such a long way and we are looking forward to many more accomplishments beginning in January! Wishing everyone a healthy, safe vacation.

Morah Chaya and Morah Lynn

4's December 17th

Dear parents,

In our handwriting program we learned two letters this week, U and C!

We built them with wood pieces, practiced writing them on our big board and on our slates, and traced them in the air. We practiced making magic C and circles. We noticed that letter U starts at the top and comes back to the top. Letter C doesn't start at the smiley face at the top but rather on the opposite side. Please take the time to review these letters with your child as we are starting to learn the letters with big curves that start with magic C (G O Q...). It is important that your child start at the top right for these letters as it will help them with lowercase letters as well later on (a o q g...).

Our theme this week was snow. We painted with fluffy shaving cream and glue to decorate our winter bulletin board and made winter shapes prints. We also read The Snowy Day by Ezra Keats and discussed what we wear when it is cold outside!

In our library hour we got to choose a book from The Chai Center library. Please make sure you return the book your child got last week so we can keep on sending Jewish books for your child to enjoy!

As part of our social skills curriculum, we place an extra emphasis on making our friends happy. It helps us a lot to remember that when we want a toy from our friends or when we hurt them or their feelings. Please remind your child that we want our friends to be happy so we share with them and use kind words.

Shabbat Shalom Morah Chaya & Arielle

Calendar Reminders

DECEMBER

Saturday Dec 18 Preschool Shabbat Luncheon

Monday Dec 20 Parent Breakfast @9:45am

Thursday Dec 23 Shopping trip for moms to Kosher grocery store.

Friday Dec 24-31 Winter Break -No sessions

JANUARY

Monday Jan 3 Preschool resumes

Friday Jan14 Parent Breakfast @9:45am

Monday Jan 17 Martin Luther King Day/ Staff Development Day-No sessions

Dear Parents,

Please take note of important upcoming dates

Saturday December 18-Preschool Shabbat Luncheon.

Please join us for Shabbat services and lunch. There will be a program for the children beginning at 11:00am. Lunch will be followed by the services at about 12:15pm.

Monday December 20 -Parent Breakfast @9:45am.

Join us for breakfast and a discussion on Parenting during the holiday season.

Make new friends, spend time with other preschool parents.

RSVP to mail@thechaicenter.com

Thursday December 23- Shopping trip for moms to Kosher grocery store.

We will leave The Chai Center at 10:00am and return at 2:15pm.

Learn how keeping kosher is so easy.

RSVP to mail@thechaicenter.com or speak to Zoey if you have any questions.

Looking forward to greeting you.

Zoey

2's Newsletter December 3rd

Dear Parents,

Chanukah is here! We have been very busy in our terrific two’s classroom. We created our first menorahs with recycled toothpaste cartons and paper towel rolls.

We printed menorahs and dreidels and dipped popsicle sticks in glitter to make it look like candles. We also made a dreidel picture frame for you to treasure.

During circle time Morah Sandy taught us how to spin the dreidel. It was so much fun for us (and a bit tricky too!).

We read “My Chanukah 5 Senses” by Morah Zoey, “My First Chanukah Book” , “Chanukah Counting Book”.

We have been singing Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel I made you out of clay… and 1 Little,2 Little , 3 Little Candles…. and the Shamash lights them all. (TTO: 1 Little,2 Little, 3 Little Indians). We played along to our favorite song “Sammy Song”. We pretended to be different animals while going to the store.

On Friday we enjoyed making challah and reading our mitzvah notes. Please check your backpacks for more notes.

Have a Shabbat Shalom and a Happy Chanukah.

Morahs Sandy, Cindy and Levana

4's Newsletter Oct. 15

Dear parents,

We enjoyed our week in school.

In our handwriting program, we reviewed mat man, and our wood pieces. We received our Handwriting Without Tears Workbook. We started on page 4 where we follow the ABC along with the song. We practiced our aim and scribble that teaches us how to aim at a specific target on the page. We got pretty good at shooting the stars and the fireflies, and were able to explain what we were doing! We are sending home more aim and scribble for your children to practice.

We finished our unit on Fall by paining and cutting leaves with Autumn colors.

We started our new theme: All About Me. We learned that we all live in houses, and Morah lives in an apartment building. We spoke about our neighbors, and some of us said they know theirs. We closed our eyes and described the front of our house, the color of our front door, the trees and the driveway. We started learning the number of our address and counted how many numbers were there: Eliana has only 1, Almorg, Talia, Avital and Abbey have 2, Kayla has 3 and Jake has 4 numbers in his address! Please send in family pictures for our unit on Families next week.

Every time we go out of our classroom is an occasion to practice our numbers. We have a number line to line up on. We can recognize our numbers on the floor, and we know where to position ourselves first through seventh to walk in a line. (1^st child standing straight like letter I). Sometimes we also walk in partners and make M’s (2 children holding hands) or W’s(3 children).

In the afternoon with Morah Arielle……

In our reading program We read “Autumn Leaves” By Gail Saunders-Smith as well as “I am a leaf” By Jean Marzollo. We sequenced the events of the story, and searched for rhyming words.

Ask your children to find the missing words.

Hickory Dickory Dock,

The mouse ran up the?

Answer: Clock

Jack and Jill ran up the?

Answer: Hill

Up above the clouds so high, like a diamond in the?

Answer: Sky

Say a rhyme along with your child. Get them to guess the rhyming word!!

We started the Letter “C.” Guess what? Only Morah Chaya has a “C” in her name. No friends in our class have a C in their name! Our Alphabet Book is coming along nicely. You will have a beautiful keepsake by the end of the school year. We used the mirror and watched as the “C” sound came out of our mouths. We are continuing our alphabet program. Ask your child what we did to learn about the letter”C.” This week our letter “C” page is covered with Cotton balls. The children had fun gluing the cotton balls onto their “C” page.

In our math program, we created our own ‘Sequence Crown’. We discussed what happens during our day. We drew a scene from our day in four squares. The first square shows how we began the day and the last square shows how we end our day. The two middle squares show what we do in the middle of the day. Last week we played/learned “learning to sequence” this was an extension of that and now they have their own crowns.

We continued to have center time daily. (Time permitting) Te children love the centers. They also love the Hebrew music. They will say, “Morah- let’s dance!!” and we do! It’s a pleasure the see them enjoying themselves and learning to socialize, imagine and play all at the same time.

On Friday, we read our Weekly Reader. We discussed all the activities children can do on a fall day. We discussed the changes in the earth and sky. We also did some counting.

Cracker is doing great. He will be having Shabbat at Elaina’s house this week. If you ever want Cracker for a Shabbat, let Morah Arielle know. Please keep those fruits and veggies coming.

Thank you! Have a wonderful Shabbat. See you Monday!

Morah Chaya and Morah Arielle.

2's Newsletter Oct. 15

Dear Parents,

We enjoyed our week in school.

We talked about the fall season. We discussed how the leaves are changing colors and “falling from the trees” we painted a giant classroom leaf (red, orange, green & yellow) using round sponges. We enjoyed dipping the sponges and “hopping” them onto the paper. We also painted our own orange paper pumpkins with small spatulas (“it felt like frosting a cake with mommy”).

We celebrated our first birthday party of the school year! Mazel tov to Jesse and Andrew! We made a beautiful card for them.

Circle time- Mora Sandy read the flannel story board of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” We laughed when she breaks the chair of the baby bear because she is too big for it! We played the “Bean Bag Game” putting the bags on different parts of our body. Fun by all!

Next week we are going to be learning about “The five Senses”. We need your help- please cut up from magazines things that we can see, taste, touch, smell and hear. We will be using them during the week in class. Thank you so much!!

Shabbat is a wonderful time in our class. We all gather around our mitzvah tree while Morah Sandy reads out mitzvah notes.

We like sharing our mitzvot! We get to pin our mitzvah notes to the tree and than dance to the tune of “Who Did a Mitzvah?”

Who Did a Mitzvah?(X3)

A mitzvah today.

_________ did a mitzvah(X3)

A mitzvah today!

Our Shabbat mats are so beautiful and special. We enjoyed using them for Friday lunch this week.

Shabbat Shalom, Morah Sandy, Morah Cindy & Morah Levana

3's Newsletter Oct. 15

Dear Parents,

This week in Preschool was very exciting! We were able to begin our lending library program.

We finally finished our "How to Take Care of a Library Book" book and we will be bringing it home next week. On Wednesday we went to The Chai Center Library and checked out a Jewish book to take home for a week. We were so quiet and careful in the library just like Morah taught us to be. Please bring the books back on Wednesdays, our regular library day.

We were introduced to letter C c by listening to The C c Book and looking at the letter C c items in the alphabet bucket. We glued cottony clouds on a big C for our alphabet book, made a C c collage, ate crunchy corn cereal and cheerios and talked about all of our favorite cereals and listened carefully as Morah read; City Colors by Linda Beech, Crazy Creative Colors by Hannah Reidy and If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff (we also made a cookie and mouse plate for the story).

Our theme this week was all about My Family. We are talking about our families and how many people are in our family and where we live. We made a family chart and hung it up on our bulletin board. On Friday we baked cup cakes and had a Shabbos parade and sing along.

We will be starting to have show and tell on Fridays.

On Fridays your child may bring a toy from home to show the friends in the class. Please do not send any toy weapons or negative influence characters to school.

Good Shabbos, Morah Chaya and Morah Lynn

2's Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We finally got to play the “Lollypop game” (with paper lollies). This game teaches us many things while still having fun. We learn to wait for our turn( When Morah calls our name.), to count, our colors, follow directions and not to get upset if someone got the colored paper lollypop that we anticipated.

The game is followed by the song, ”There were 10 little lollies in the candy shoppe sitting on the shelf with some sugar on the top, along came______

With some money to pay and he/she took the ______ lolly and he/she walked away.

We listened to the flannel board story of Little Red Ridding hood. We were a little afraid of the big bad wolf. But Morah Sandy told us he is not coming back (until next time).

We made our own Shabbat mats. We will be using them in school on Fridays.

We talked about the Fall season, what happens to the trees, different colors of the leaves falling down, squirrels gathering their food and different colors of apples. Morah Sandy showed us that a star lives in the apple! We apple printed, using red and green paint. We made apple trees by gluing and crunching red tissue paper (great for fine motor skills!) We enjoyed painting brown squirrels using cotton balls.

Books we read this week: Fall. Alphabet Animals, Clifford’s First Autumn, and I Love You Through and Through.

The class is running well and the children have become accustomed to the routine.

Shabbat Shalom,

Morahs Sandy and Cindy

4's News letter

Dear parents,

This week was filled with fun and learning:

In our handwriting program, we met our new friend Mat Man: he is the man we can make out of our wood pieces, as we sing our Mat Man song:

Mat Man has one head, one head, one head, Mat Man has one head, so that he could hear

Mat Man has two eyes….so that he can see,

Mat Man has one nose …. So that he can smell,

Mat Man has one mouth ….. so that he can eat (and smile)

Mat Man has two ears …. So that he can hear,

Mat Man has one body … to hold what is inside, his heart, his lungs, his tummy,

Mat Man has two arms … so that he can reach,

Mat Man has two hands … so that he can clap,

Mat Man has two legs … so that he can run,

Mat Man has two feet … so that he can walk

We drew our Mat Man before and after we met him, and it was very different from one another: we really learned to draw our body parts, and place the head, the eyes, the arms and the legs at their place. Please review Mat Man at home and encourage proper placement of the body parts.

Our theme this week was Fall. We read “The Little Leaf”, curled like leaves that fall of the tree and blew like the wind. We went on a rain walk, observed the colors of the trees, and gathered the few first leaves that were on the ground already to put them in our classroom.

In our library hour, we started to learn how to take care of a book. We reviewed where the front, the back, the top and the bottom of the book were, then practiced holding a book and turning the pages gently. We learned that if we are in the middle of a book and we want to stop, we should not bend the pages or the corner of the book, but we should use a bookmark. We decorated our very own bookmark and can’t wait to use it!

We wish Mazel Tov to Jake Campo on his 4^th birthday, and would like to thank his family for bringing us pizza, and treats and joining us for a great party!

Please keep the Mitzvah notes coming. Thank you to all the mommies and daddies who take the time to write a mitzvah note in the morning! We read them every morning at circle time and celebrate our friends’ mitzvahs with a song!

In the afternoon with Mora Arielle…

We have a new classroom pet, a guinea pig. His Name is Cracker. We took a vote to name our new friend and created a graph. We even had the 3’s come to our room to help us vote.

In our reading program we read “Crunchy Munchy Cookies” by V.H. Romanelli

We made cookies-YUM!! We are starting to learn all about rhyming words ex: man, can, van.

We sang to the tune of “Do you know the muffin man?”

Oh have you seen a frog on a log (3x)

Quite a sight to see.

The song continues- Sing it with your child.

A bug in a jug.

A bee in a tree.

A fish in a dish.

Ask your child the answers to these rhymes:

Imagine a bear with long brown?

Answer: HAIR

Imagine a mouse in an itty bitty?

Answer: HOUSE

Imagine a cat with a baseball and a?

Answer: BAT

Imagine a whale with a flippy floppy?

Answer: TAIL

We stared the letter “B”. We discovered only Abbey has a “B” in her name, not 1 but 2 B’s!! We used the mirror and watched our mouths as the “B” sound came out. We all received a “B” item. We listed them and thought of some of our own! We created our “B” page for our alphabet book.

In our math program we read “Do you know its fall?” by Allen Fowlen. We began to sequence the story. We played “learning to Sequence.” Each child got 4 cards and had to sequence them into the correct order. We will continue to sequence next week.

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Chaya and Morah Arielle

Dear Parents,

We wanted to share with you a few exciting new additions to our school.

· We have added a computer center in the library with two computers designated for the 3 and four year old preschool students. In the weeks to come we will share with you updates on our special computer times.

· In the four year old class we have a new friend “Cracker”. He is a Guinea Pig. All the classes will enjoy visiting him and our four year old students will be taking care of Cracker under the guidance of Morah Arielle.

· If you peak into each classroom you will see a beautiful age appropriate colorful rug.

· In addition to our daily updates easel, we will try to

put the updates on the preschool blog daily and post our newsletters on the preschool blog. Go to www.thechaicenter.comand click on preschool blog.

Reminder : No sessions on Monday Oct 11- Columbus Day/ Staff Development.

We look forward to continue to give your child the best preschool education.

ALL the best,

Zoey

OUR WEEKLY 2 YEAR OLD NEWSLETTER

September 16, 2010

Dear Parents,

School is off to a wonderful start!

The children are getting use to our classroom routine and adapting well to their new environment. Our day begins with “free play” in our different centers. We have a building and creative center, a home center, a reading center, a painting center and a work center at our class tables to explore puzzles, play dough & shape blocks. After cleaning the room which we do to our song “Everyone clean up….” We do a project related to the theme of the day (this week we painted and decorated a giant class “Birthday Cake”).

Snack comes next, which is cut up fruit. They Love it! This week we had cantaloupe, apples, strawberries and watermelon. Circle time seems to be their favorite time! We gather at the center of the rug. This week we sang & read “The Wheels on the Bus” and learned to “Freeze Dance”! (they can dance!!) We played & and sang to hand puppets of “Five little monkeys” and “Five Little Speckled Frogs”. Morah Sandy blew bubbles and sang “Pop-Pop-Pop the Bubbles”. Next is outdoor/indoor gym time. This week we did both! We are learning how to hold onto rope and stair rail when we walk outside. It was a task, but we made it! When we get back we wash up and have lunch. It is interesting to watch how they interact with each other at this time.

At the end of the day we sing our goodbye song “See You Later Alligator….” and say goodbye to our friends!

We had a great first week! We enjoy having your children.

Shana Tova!

Morah Sandy

Morah Cindy (in the morning)

Morah Levana (in the afternoon)

OUR WEEKLY 3 YEAR OLD NEWSLETTER

Sept.16, 2010

Dear Parents,

We had an amazing first week of Preschool! The children came right into the class comfortable and ready for the day ahead. We started out on Monday reading the well known children's book "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn. The story is all about little Chester Raccoon who is uneasy about leaving mommy and going to school. We made orange hand prints with a special heart kiss sticker right in the middle just like Chester's!

We are becoming familiar with what an alphabet letter is by playing with foam letters, stamping letters and reading ABC Books; Dr. Suess's ABC Book, Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and Aa Is For Apple by Omri Stephenson.

We decorated one of our bulletin boards with a large alphabet tree just like the one in Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom. The children all colored a piece of paper with tree trunk colors and we taped them together and cut out a tree shape and then decorated it with the leaves they decorated with alphabet pasta. We also painted this week with dot paints and water colors.

For Yom Kippur we talked about how we are kind to our friends in school and how we listen to our parents and Morahs (teachers). One way to be kind to our friends in school is by sharing. We love singing our sharing song every morning during circle time.

We had so much fun with puzzles, blocks, legos, bristle blocks, the doll and housekeeping corner and getting to play outside in this beautiful weather Hashem (G-D)has given us.

Please bring your child to school on time in the morning and come on time in the afternoon. When your child comes late he or she is missing a very important part of the morning; structured free play with his friends. Remember to send a healthy snack and drink for the afternoon. If you did not send the supplies from the supply list please bring them on Monday.

Good Shabbos and Good Yom Tov, Morah Chaya and Morah Lynn

OUR WEEKLY PRE-K NEWSLETTER

Dear parents,

This first week of Pre-K was Awesome.

Our Theme was Yom Kippur. We are all friends in our class and we are learning how to listen to one another. When a friend wants to speak, we all say “shhh”. We use our eyes and ears to listen to our Morah’s and our friend’s. We used cutting, gluing, pasting and painting to decorate our Yom Kippur Book. We also practiced singing our sharing song: “You share, I share…”

In our handwriting program, we are practicing to recognize our right hand. (Note: we do not encourage right hand over left, but it is easier for children to identify their sides by starting by their right hand.) We are also signing in our names every morning, starting at the top and sing the following song:

Where do you start your letters? At the top!

Where do you start your letters? At the top!

If you want to write a letter,

Then you better, better, better,

Remember to start it at the top!

Is this the top, top, top? No it’s the bottom.

Is this the top, top, top? No it’s the middle.

Is this the top, top, top? It’s the top, top, top,

Where do you start your letters? At the top!

In the afternoon…

We went over class rules:

*Indoor voices *Walking feet *Listening ears *Hands off

We are all friends. We are learning to all work together, play together and respect each other in our classroom community. We listen to each other, take turns, respect our friends belongings and share with each other.

We started the Weekly Reader Program. Each student will receive a weekly age appropriate children’s newspaper called The Weekly Reader. Each week high lights a topic of interest that we will discuss in class.

We will be learning a new letter each week. We started the letter ‘A’ “a”. We made a letter ‘A’ page for our alphabet book that we will be adding to all year as we learn our letters.. We ate red, yellow and green apples. We graphed which was our favorite apple. Red was definitely the favorite! We are also working on name recognition- our own name and the names of our friends.

In our reading program we read Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus. Ask your child all about Leo.

*Please send in watercolors (8 colors), 1 glue stick, 1 liquid Elmers glue and a pair of scissors for your child.

Have a good Yom Kippur fast and a happy and healthy new Jewish year.

Morah Chaya and Morah Arielle