We're Ready for Pesach . . .
We learned a lot about spring. On our trip last month, we noticed the trees, plants and flowers of our neighborhood. We sketched the daffodils that were growing on our school's property. We went on a springtime scavenger hunt, too.
Then, our Sensory Table became a Bug Bin. Our table was full of pastel-colored rice, flowers and plastic bugs. Signs of spring were everywhere!
(Above, Ari, Leiba, Yoni and friends enjoy Morning Arrival time at the Bug Bin.)
We worked in pairs with pastel-colored chalk as we sketched rosemary and azalea flowers.
It's spring, and we know that Passover is just around the corner. It is known as the Springtime Holiday. Morah Yael shared a story with us. It was about a hen who grew wheat from seed, harvested the wheat, and made matzah. Morah Yael held up a sheaf of wheat for us to see. We touched it, too. Then, we used a rock to grind it. The kernels were very tough!
Morah Dena was our guest reader. She also shared a book about Pesach.
Matzah Man became one of favorite stories. Rami and Noa retell the story using the Matzah Man puppet.
At Circle Time, we played a game: Passover food or Chametz? We took turns placing our food magnets on the floor in the appropriate place. Our surprise? We discovered that so many delicious foods, like apples, bananas, pears, oranges, are permissible on Pesach. We had focused on the
chametz foods, not realizing that there are so many "regular" foods for us to eat.
Our Morah brought in fresh parsley for us to experience. Many of us use parsley for
Karpas, to dip in salt water. Reed gets a close look at the parsley and begins making an illustration of it.
Sam prepares his Mah Nishtana book. Because we learned how to sew on burlap earlier in the year, we continued with this skill when we made mini-
Mesubin pillows. We know that reclining is a sign of freedom, and that we recline at the Seder.
(Above: Ruth uses our parsley to create a page in her Mah Nishtana book.)
(Ari, above, uses a sponge when working on her Mah Nishtana book. Below, Hannah works on her book.)
(Below, Henia and Leiba using gold paint and sponges on their Mah Nishtana books.)
(Above, Sam sets the Pesach table; below, dramatic play at the table.)
As they set the table, the children asked, "Do we need candles on Pesach? Grape juice?" There are so many similarities between the Seder and our Shabbat table, and so many differences. We sang some of Mah Nishtana, Why is this Night Different.
We learn other songs, too: parts of Dayenu, Who Knows One, and the refrain from the Order of the Seder song. We like singing, "Pesach, We Celebrate . . ." (To hear the Uncle Moishy tune that we sung in class, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSMQLQcq5x4)
Morah Susan brought a big piece of cardboard to class. It was huge! What goes on in her house, we wondered. Our Morah told us she bought a new outdoor table, and she had saved the box for us.
We took the box outside and painted it. It became the sea, for Yam Suf, the Reed Sea. We gathered our toy people and horses to act out the story.
(Below: Ari and friends decide to add cars to the parting of the sea. It's not as odd as it seems; the story is real. When the children use representations of actual items in their lives in their dramatic play, it heightens their sense of closeness to the story.)
After we completed most of our Mah Nistana books, we created Kos Eliyahu, Elijah cups, to use at the Seder. We looked at a cluster of actual grapes to get an idea as to how to decorate our glasses. We used glass paint, Q-Tips and Sharpees. We learned the word
cluster to describe our grapes, and the word
vine, too. When we examined the wheat with Morah Yael, we learned the word
sheaf. We are building vocabulary regularly.
(Below, Ruthie, Reed and Izzy decorate their glasses.)
The Morot had to think about how the Kitah Gimmel boys and girls would bring their Pesach items home. The teachers went together to the store, examining all the boxes at Richard's Variety, to see which one would be the perfect choice. We brought some of the children's projects along with us and placed them in the different varieties of boxes. We wanted to get a realistic idea of the spatial set-up. We picked the boxes with the handles. There were only about 11 on the shelf, but the cashier told us that there were 83 in stock! We needed 16, so there would be enough.
Days later, some of us went outside to pick flowers. We made pastel-colored paint by mixing our regular paint with white. We didn't know what to expect. Then we realized that the colors got lighter! We should do this again. We dipped the flowers in the paint and used them as brushes on our boxes. So pretty! The colors remind us of spring, and spring reminds us of Pesach. Some of the pieces of the flowers stuck to our boxes, adding a little bit of texture.
Levi works on his Shmot stick-puppets. He can take these out at the Seder to act out the story of Baby Moses, Miriam and Pharaoh's daughter. There's an adult Moshe, too. Levi can continue the story . . .The stick puppets will go in his Pesach box.
So, of course we learned a lot about the story of Passover. We learned about the Seder rituals, too, and some of the songs. A big part of Passover is getting rid of the Chametz, so we had to clean, clean, clean. Ari found some smidgens of left-over lunch in her cubby. It was yucky, but we're big and mature, and we can clean. We can help out for Pesach. We're capable of cleaning, singing, setting the table, contributing to the conversation and so much more. Enjoy!
Happy Passover!
Morah Susan and Morah Yael
