Cakes and Crowns--We Finish Up Experiencing Purim . . .

Cakes and Crowns

      We have busy afternoons. This  week, our Extended Day group had a fun time experiencing some crafts and cooking--all Purim related.

     We love drama.  Purim is the perfect time for story telling.  Today, a few of us  prepared our own silly Monster Puppets.  We can use our puppets for all kinds of stories.  We will continue with paper bag puppets next week.

      Purim is also the perfect time to hone our kitchen skills.  We baked brownies and created a Purim note.  We then placed the brownies in the front office with some tangerines--a quick and tasty Misholach Manot for the staff.

      We designed our own crowns, too.  We know about palaces, kings and queens.  Making our crowns assists us in developing and extending our awareness of Purim.

          Enjoy our photos--the Morahs love sharing the Extended Day adventures with you!

Shabbat Shalom,

The Extended Day Morahs 

       

                   

Purim Gets Colorful in PKA

Purim is a explosion of color and sound, and we got into the Purim spirit by engaging in a multitude of art activities that incorporated color, texture, and movement as well.

Our bulletin board was about to get a face lift from the somber colors that winter brings. We glued colorful collage materials onto posterboard to make our new background. 

The final result!

Another day we rolled balls through paint and discovered that it creates a track pattern on the paper. We added the final product to our bulletin board as well. 

Our next art activity involved an item you might expect to find in your kitchen instead of at preschool - a salad spinner! Many household items can double as toddler-friendly activity-makers. We squeezed paint inside, sprinkled some glitter and turned the wheel! The result was a display of unique color splashes.

Art with Morah Jessica is a special time for the children to have one-on-one and small group time with a talented artist. Morah Jessica embodies the Reggio vision of creating with natural, found materials, so of course our graggers were made of something that grows from the ground - bamboo! First the children decorated the outside by gluing on colorful sequins. Next, they exercised very fine motor skills by picking up small beads and bolts and dropping them in the hollow tube to make the gragger's sound.  A piece of burlap sealed the ends and - voila! Our very own graggers!

One of Purim's well-known customs is to dress up in costumes and masks. We created masks to disguise our pictures! Even though their eyes are hiding ,the children can usually discern who is who. 

Happy Purim!

And So It Begins . . .The Fun of Getting Ready for Purim

Be Happy, It's Adar  . . .

   
     It's a fact.  The children in Extended Day regularly integrate their morning Core Day experiences into the afternoon.  And so just around the time of Rosh Chodesh Adar, the beginning of the new month, the children were already thinking and talking about . . . masks and costumes! We know that the joy of Purim is just around the corner.

     

     On a rainy afternoon when we needed to stay inside, we found plenty to do.  We took plain paper, markers, sequins, feathers--and voila--masks! 

     We've had sunny days, too.  Thursday was too beautiful for words, so we stayed outside for most of the afternoon.  We went to our wooden fence (below), picking at some of the loose pieces of yarn.  We love to weave, but it's a lot of fun to "unweave" too!  We used the strands of yarn to make belts and bracelets.  Then we decided that we needed costumes, to use with our belts.

      Morah Jessica was quick to respond to our need.  She knew where we had a fine stash of fabric.  The children went with the morah to get the basket of fabric--and then went to work, draping the cloth and tying with the belts.

                  
      We continued to play outside, fancy-schmancy costumes don't get in our way!  After we were finished, we stored our costumes away in individually labeled bags--so we can take off where we left off with our costumes on another day!

Oh, the fun of costumes--hooray, Purim is on it's way!

From The Extended Day Morahs . . .(what masks or costumes will they wear?)

Purim Day in KDH

KDH yiladim came in dressed up and ready for a busy Purim morning filled with joy and mitzvot.

The children made mishloach manot men with juice boxes, raisins and apple sauce that they hot glued together and added faces, hair and hats! They were taken home to give to family.

The entire school went up to the third building where we listened to Rabbi Schusterman read the megillah, while we colored, ate snacks and watched a video of the Puirm story.

After the parents heard the megillah they joined us in our classroom where we did a round robin with the Shalach Manot. Everyone gave and received a bag that the children had packed up the day before.

Rabbis Schusterman came in and collected the Matanot L'Evyonim - money to disburse to needy people on Purim day.

We had one more mitzvah to do. The Seudah. Everyone enjoyed the rolls, soup and salad that were prepared by the children.

Finally, pony rides, reminiscent of Mordechai riding on the king's horse was the climax of the day!

Happy Purim to all!

Morah Ruth

Morah Gail