Purim

Purim is a fun holiday celebration. The children have been listening to and learning about the story of Purim. A palace has been set up in the classroom for the children to see how it looked a long time ago in Persia. For the holiday of Purim, the children will come dressed in costumes for the festivities, which includes reading the story from the scroll called “The Magilla,”  singing songs, exchanging shalach monos which is giving a bag of food to another child, and eating homemade hamantashen.  The children will dress up as kings and queens

        

The children have been working very hard in preparation for this holiday. They have been using many of their fine motor, matching colors, patterning, and creative decision-making skills.

The children have been busy making several crafts to take home for the holiday.  They made their own crowns, masks, scroll holders to hold the Magilla, and groggers, which are noisemakers. After painting the groggers they added items to make noise. The four choices of items to put in the grogger were rice, gravel, beans, and small shells. Then the children finished decorating the graggers with streamers.  They also decorated bags for the shalach manos packages.  The children made the batter and the hamentashen cookies for the Purim celebration. At the Purim celebration, the children gave a bag filled with cookies and sweets to another child and received one from another child.  For the festive celebration of the Purim holiday, the children came dressed up as Kings and Queens and sang and danced.

                 

 

 

 

 

February/Book fair

The children have been looking at the books from the book fair. We have had the privilege of several parents reading storybooks to us. We thank Saksahi’s dad, Brynn’s mom and dad, Jackson’s grandma, and Julia’s mom. Thank you for the books donated to the class.

      

These are the books the parents read to the class.

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The children have been learning about construction and the vehicles used in construction projects.  The children have had the opportunity to view the live construction site and see the men at work.  In the classroom, the children have been driving construction vehicles on a track set up on the rug in the block area,  in addition, some have been putting together a picture puzzle of a truck.

       

 

The children have been focusing on recognizing and naming the letters in the alphabet specifically the first letters of their names.  Using watercolor paints., the children painted their own letter that was outlined on a piece of paper with tape. The children used their fingers to pull off the tape and see the outline of their own letter as well as their classmates.

On our next venture we look forward to learning about and celebrating the Holiday of Purim.

February-Art Unit

We have been working very hard and spent a great deal of time creating our self-portraits using many skills and art mediums. We were very proud to display our final projects for all the parents to see at the art show.

 

We read the book, “Mouse Paint.” It is about 3 white mice who hide from a cat by jumping into the primary color paints. They are Red, yellow and blue. The children explored painting using the primary colors and discovered that red mixed with blue, makes purple. Red and yellow mixed together make orange and blue and yellow mixed make green. What a fun discovery and creation.

 

 

      

     

January/Art Month

This is art month. The children are focusing on different types of mediums in art. They took the colored tape and adhered it to paper, then painted right on top. When dry, using their fine motor skills, the children peeled off the tape and had an abstract painted picture.

 

 

The children are learning about small, medium and big. They were putting together snowmen made out of felt using small medium and big cut pieces.  They then took one small, medium and big circle made out of card stock and used a variety of materials to create their own unique snowman.

Discussing the winter weather, the children observed that there were no leaves on the trees.  The children made a class tree. They first collected sticks and twigs from outside. They then sponged the trunk of the tree brown.  After that, they painted the branches using brushes.  When dry they each had the opportunity to tape a stick onto a branch on the paper tree by using their fine motor skills to rip a piece of tape and adhere it to the branch/stick that they collected.

 

The children are working hard on creating their self-portraits that will be on display at the art show in February.

The weather has finally warmed up a bit, letting the children have some fresh air time out on the playground. 

 

New Year 2020

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a relaxing holiday. We celebrated our first birthday in 2020.

  

The children have been exploring winter in the sensory table with artificial snow, snowballs, snowflakes.  The children even found the hibernating white bear.  The children have been counting and using their fine motor skills by placing a small ball/flat marble in the corresponding circle on the snowman.

                                             

Chanukah in December

The children have been learning a lot about the upcoming holiday of Chanukah.; AKA (Festival of Lights)  They learned that the holiday lasts eight days, and each evening we add an additional candle until we get a total of eight candles. It is customary to eat latkes (potato pancakes) and sweet jelly doughnuts during Chanukah.  For a fine motor activity, the children used a roller with paint and sand on a stencil of a menorah.   The children tried spinning a dreidel with paint on it to create the spin art effect.

 

The children made their own menorahs using a paint stick, wooden dowels, and metal nuts. There were multiple steps creating the menorah. First, step was spraying the stick with colored water, the second step, was sponge painting the stick, the third step, was dipping the dowels into colored water, and the last step was gluing the dowels to the stick.

     

We celebrated our first 3-year-old birthday in our class. The children made cupcakes for the occasion.

 

The children made and decorated dreidle cookies for the Chanukah party.

 

We welcomed our new friend who joined our class.

Wishing everyone a Healthy, Happy and safe New Year!

   

 

 

 

December-1st snow of the season

The children took advantage of the leftover snow from the snow day. Outside the children had the chance to romp around to feel the snow crunching under their feet. They even picked up the snow to feel the texture of it. The children saw a small snowman built by the Pre-K children.

Each child brought in a cup of snow. We also brought in one big container of snow to put in the sensory table. The children even tasted the snow. Over time the children observed what happens to snow when inside. Wow, it melted and turned to water.

 

The children are learning about the upcoming holiday of Channukah aka “The Festival of Lights.”  They are counting and matching the number of candles to the actual number itself. They are counting the Channukah “Gelt,” which are coins made of chocolate. The children are also learning how to spin dreidels. It’s all in the wrist movement.  It is not an easy task.

   

 

November 2019

The children learned about the primary colors red, yellow and blue. They heard the story Mouse Paint in which the mice mix the colors to make new colors. The children then had the opportunity of using finger paint to mix the primary colors to make purple and green. The children used their fine motor skills during this activity.

The children heard the story of Thanksgiving and had many discussions about how they can be good helpers in school and at home.  They have been putting change in a jar from the beginning of the year for Tzedakah which helps people less fortunate and in need.  The recent discussions have focused on giving thanks.  For the Thanksgiving project, the children made their own Tzedakah boxes.  They incorporated the fall exploration, by using fall colors and leaves.  The children were able to pick out the first letter of their name (letter recognition) and adhere the letter to their project.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast gathering with many of the Zimmer families.  Each class contributed to the feast by making something delicious for the holiday.   We made yummy cornbread.  The children measured, poured and mixed the batter.  It came out great; everybody loved it.

 

 

 

November Autumn/Fall activities

During the month of November, the children were learning about the pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn.  The children had the chance to try and remove the corn from the stalk.  They used their fine motor skills, which was using their fingers taking a kernel off one at a time.  The children used the kernels to fill a picture of a corn stalk. The children counted the kernels as they glued them on and they added the husks to the top of the corn stalk.

    

Our exploration of pumpkins began with washing the pumpkins with sponges in soapy water.  When they were clean and dry we cut open three pumpkins and compared the seeds in size and texture. The smaller the pumpkin the smaller the seeds. We also learned first hand about the guts of a pumpkin. Sticking our little fingers and hands inside a pumpkin was sticky and slimy.  We got handfuls of seeds and pulp.  We counted the seeds and found out that there were way too many seeds to count. The seeds were then baked.  When done we ate them. They were yummy, however, not all of us liked touching or eating the seeds.

     

     

   

 

 

 

 

 

October welcomes the Fall Season & its also Fire Prevention Month.

October is Fire Safety Prevention Month.  Firefighters Gary & Russel from the Liberty Corner Fire Station came to Zimmer.  They talked to us about fire safety.  If there is a fire, the best thing to do is get out of the house or school.  When outside of the building, 911 is the phone number to be called. They showed the children the gear they wear when fighting a fire.  The highlight of the visit was going onto the fire truck.

    

The children have been learning about Autumn/Fall.  They understand the weather is changing from hot to cold, and that means that outwear is needed to be worn.  The children have noticed that the leaves are changing color and the many leaves on the ground.  They saw the bare trees.  The children collected leaves and sticks and twigs from the ground, and some of the children also had a chance to collect acorns from the ground.  They examined and hugged several trees; connecting them with nature during this fall season.

        

The children painted pictures of trees using brown paint and a brush to make the tree trunk, limbs, and branches. Next step, the children used red, yellow and orange paint.  They dipped sponges into the paint and sponged painted the leaves on the tree to finish the tree they scrunched up tissue paper and put on the leaves on the tree.

       

The children used large acorns for one to one correspondence.  They put acorns on a card trying to match the number of acorns to the number of circles on the card.  The children used their fine motor skills using a spoon to scoop up the small acorns and put them into an empty space in an egg carton.

   

The children have been focusing on building their fine motor skills, The different ways play-dough was used was squeezing it, rolling it into a ball by using their fingers and using a rolling pin to make it flat as a pancake. The children used their fist to hold stampers to create images in the play dough.

Using their fine motor skills the children squeezed and popped the packing bubble. It was hard but lots of fun!!!