Our Nursery class has been so busy learning so many different things since we last posted. Once we came back from Hurricane Sandy we took time to talk to the children about everything that happened from the weather outside, to the damage it did to their homes and what the were feeling, and even the damage it did to our own school. Addressing these things and validating their feelings was extremely important. We wanted them to feel like they can express whatever was on their mind and that we could talk about it and make them feel better in some way. Believe it or not, but the children all had so much to say. Some told of the weather and how windy it was. Others told about the trees that fell. And there were even those who told about how sad/ angry they were that the water was in their homes. We already had learned about feelings and the children were able to use things we learned to help express themselves.

We began learning about our homes right after the hurricane. Morah Inna let us borrow a book that she wrote and illustrated when she was in college. The title is The Little Lonely Bunny. In this book there was a bunny ho lived alone and was lonely and sad. Once he heard that his familys home was destrayed in a hurricane, he invited them to come and stay with him so he could share his things with them. In the end he wasn't lonely and he was able to help them out too. This book came at a perfect time given the circumstances that we all just went through with Hurricane Sandy. After reading this, our class spoke about each room that we can find in a house and what we find in that particular room and also what we can do in each room. The children came up with some pretty clever ideas. We hung up a poster that talks about some of these things in our classroom that you may have seen at curriculum night.

The next thing we went on to learn about was our senses and our body. We learned about these things at the same time since they go hand in hand. Morah brought in a cd for us to listen to with our ears. We heard the song head shoulders knees and toes and Morah gave us a chance to practice touching each part while we sang the songs together. It was a lot of fun and the children really enjoyed doing it.
While learning about the sense of hearing we played another game called sound tracks where Morah puts a tape into the casette player and we all had to listen with our ears very carefully for the sounds being played and put a piece onto our cards (like bingo) when we heard the sound of the pictures on the cards. It was a great time had by all. They did a wonderful job trying to guess the sounds.

Morah brought in some blocks that have different colored see through pieces when we learned about the sense of sight which we use our eyes to do this. It gave us a chance to also review colors which we do all the time. While looking through these see through blocks that were all different colors, we got to see the changes in color that things were looked at turned as we took a different color block to look through. Playing eye spy with my little eye is another way we reviewed both lessons.

For the sense of smell Morah brought in lots of different things for us to smell. We closed our eyes so we would not see what it was and we had to tell if we thought it smelled good or bad (tummy or yuchy) without even knowing what it was before. Some of the answers that the children concluded were very funny. They all enjoyed the 'mystery' of this activity.
With the sense of touch our friends made a collage using all different textured materials and they had to say what each item felt like (smooth, rough, sticky, etc). We also made our own scented playdough.

When it came to taste we made it a part of our shabbat party.
Since the number of body parts we use for these senses are either 1 or 2, we took time and reviewed these numbers and being able to tell their value and put up the correct amount of fingers and count things with those numbers and recognize the number itself too. (this is something that is a part of our daily lessons too)

Thanksgiving came and we spent the week learning all about being thankful for all the different things we have. We taught the children how important it is to say thank you for things and that it is the right thing to do. Our Nursery friends listened to Morah read many different books about the Thanksgiving story and about being thankful. We made a project with our hand print and had to come up with 5 things that we are thankful for. The children really came up with some really amazing things. It goes to show you that they really are absorbing the importance of the lesson and they really gave it thought. Morah even let us make a silly turkey hat to wear. It was fun to make!

Nursery friends went on to learn about the letter M. We spoke about the sound, what it looks like, and came up with a lot of different things that start with the letter on our 'M' chart. Morah told us that the Maccabees had great Mitzvah behavior and that they start with the letter M. The children came up with lots of Mitzvot they like to do because Mitzvot starts with M. Our class made 'Mugs' for our Mommy's and Daddy's to use when they came to visit our class.

Chanukah has quickly approached and our class spent a lot of time this past week learning all about it. Morah taught us all about the story of how King Antiochus was a mean king and didn't want the Jewish people to learn the torah, do mitzvot, keep shabbat, or not to love hashem. This made the Jewish people sad. The maccabees were very brave and tried to protect the Jewish people and went to the king and his men and told them to leave and stop breaking the things in the beit hamikdas- hashems special house. But before that the Jewish people played dreidal when the mean men were watching when they were really learning torah but they didn't want to get in trouble. Once the mean king antiochus and his men left, they Jewish people went into the beit hamidash and tried to clean it. They wanted to light the Menorah but only found 1 small jug of oil but hashem made something special happen and instead of the oil only lasting for one day, it lasted for eight. We spoke about the number eight and counted it and spoke of its value too.Our friends made their very own chanukah menorahs and worked hard on them- we hope you like them. They also made a very beautiful sheet with the brachot- blessings on them to say while lighting the menorah at home. Morah has also been teaching us so many chanukah songs and we can't wait to sing them when you all come to celebrate chanukah with us. We can't wait to see you! It will be so much fun!