An Environment of Yes

Intown Jewish Preschool provides a blended montessori and reggio learning experience, allowing the children's learning to be self led and oh, so special. Through our tray exploration, children create stories in small worlds, build with loose parts, explore their senses, and show us a thing or two about what we've provided for them to play with, there really are no limits when independence meets creativity.

Yonah happily builds towers of all different colors!

Mina is counting and placing the candles on the Menorah!

Asher's putting the blue circle into the fence and is pretending it's water!

Leora is showing us many ways to stack the colorful floor puzzle.

Adom is busy working on the construction site. 

Sela is focusing on putting together ALL of the shape puzzles. 

Parker likes to filter the fine sand through his hands. 

Orli can make lines, hand prints, and piles of sand over the light table. 

Mason prefers on giant mound and he can see more light!

Gavi make straight lines and says he's a construction worker!

Liav is figuring out how to build and stack with wooden blocks and triangles. 

So many different trays, so many different opportunities!

Asher's birdie is trying to stand on the branch!

Lily figured out the green rock is round and fuzzy!

Erez is staking the magnetic shapes on top of each other to make a tall tower. 

Lev is wrapping baby Moshe up safely. 

Elliot is finding jewels in the desert sand. 

KDH visits blabla Dolls

KDH has shown a keen interest and love for dolls. When we needed more, we made them by stuffing baby clothes, and making challah dolls with stockings and stuffing. What could we do with this interest to give our children a deeper experience?

Morah Dena suggested that we visit blabla dolls. blabla dolls is a company based in Atlanta that was begun by two friends, Susan Pritchett and Florence Wetterwald, who visited Peru together. They saw the knitting cooperatives and were inspired to start a business making cotton knitted dolls.

The car ride is always a treasured part of our field trips.

Less than 1.5 miles from IJP, on Virginia Avenue, tucked into a residential street is the store front and design center for this beautiful enterprise. 

The owners and employees prepared a special program for us. Our experience began in the store with  the children being encouraged to look around and asking them which dolls they wanted to hold and examine. The children chose the ones they liked and passed them along to each other. 

We were struck by the beauty and peace that we felt in the store. The love and respect that the blabla personnel have for children truly resonated with us.

After watching videos of the dolls, it was time for the children to help design a doll. Florence drew the basic doll on a very large chalkboard and asked the children what kind of doll they wanted to create. A koala bear blabla doll complete with a whistle was the result of this cooperative effort.

We were taken to the design center. Flo and Lora showed us the props that they make to use in their books and videos. They demonstrated how they stand up and steady the dolls for the picture taking. 

 May read us two entertaining books. We also saw videos of the women knitting the dolls. There are about twenty hours of work that go into making each doll!

Before we left, each child was presented with a bag with the catalog, stickers, a note pad, a coupon. 

 Anslee went home and found the blabla doll that her brother Reed had gotten when he was a new born. It stills looks new. Natalie used her pad and drew many more blabla dolls.

The next morning the children designed more blabla dolls and named them.

 These are being used for a thank you note!

Yinon's mom came in and showed us the knitted finger puppet that she knitted. She is coming in to make them with the class!

Dramatic play, knitting, geography, finding the hidden treasures in our neighborhood and the kindness of  the blabla dolls owners and employees are all part of this exciting outing!

Morah Ruth

Morah Sara

KDH Menorah and Loose Parts

KDH began thinking about constructing Menorahs/Chanukiot a few weeks before Chanukah. We wanted the Chanukiah to be each child's unique creation, to be non-flammable, and yes, beautiful. Our plan  was to use a large subway tile with smaller glass tiles fit it with the "Loose Parts" that we have introduced this year.

The children worked on each step of making their menorahs, starting with pulling the tiles off the net sheet that they come on. This was not easy work but certainly strengthened their pincer grasp and hand muscles.
They sorted the different tiles so that it would be easy for their classmates to choose the tiles when they designed their menorahs.

                                      

We put the tiles out in advance of the children making the menorahs so that would become familiar with working with them. They created patterns or just put them out randomly as they wished, thinking about how they looked together and what they would want on the menorahs.

The children were then given the subway tile and counted out the bolts. The bolts were glued on and the children took the small  tiles, putting them down on the subway tile, without gluing them down. When they were satisfied with what they had designed, we gently removed the tiles and glued them down, row by row.

It is exciting to watch each child work on his/her menorah. Some children make patterns with the tiles, some make a symmetrical design, others stand the tiles up, some work a day on one side and then revisit it, adding tiles to the other side. Each menorah is a work of art. The mitzvah of lighting the Chanukah candles is certainly beautified with each child's menorah.

We left the tiles out after Chanukah and Becker found something else to do with them. Using the wooden circles that he had brought into the class, he put one circle inside the other. After placing the tiles on the wood, he moved the wood around, constantly changing his creation.
Loose pieces offer so many opportunities for creativity!!

Morah Ruth
Morah Sara
Morah Gail