Dear Parents,

It was a wonderful night of art and fun and friendship this Wednesday, at our Early Childhood Center Art Night!  I enjoyed watching everyone “ooh” and “aah” over the beautiful art projects that the children have created over the course of the year, and catching up with many of you.  There is something special about having a chat over wine and cheese — very different from our usual interactions in the school hallways every day!  Many thanks to Mr. Myricks for being an awesome D.J. and leading the children in many fun dance games.  I am very happy that so many of you were able to join us for this special evening.

Now that it is spring, our thoughts turn to warmer weather and outdoor play.  Our thoughts also turn to planning for Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates our release from slavery thousands of years ago.  Themes of freedom and new life are central to this holiday, and our teachers have many fun and creative ways for the children to explore these themes and learn about the story and customs associated with Passover.  I look forward to sharing our Passover seder (special meal) with you in a few weeks.

Have a great weekend!

Jennifer

2’s Weekly Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We are all excited to be back in school.  We began our week joining Ms. Jo in Zumba. 

We made rain drops using torn construction paper.  We finger painted red, yellow, and blue and we began making frog puppets.  The five day children also made rainbows.

We read We Play On A Rainy Day, Raindrops, and The Wide-Mouthed Frog.  We also watched the Sesame Street video of “Three Primary Colors”.  On Thursday we watched “The Rainbow Song” video.

Thank you again to our library moms for volunteering on Wednesday.  We are excited that Sanjay and Akshay’s mom has joined the Wednesday volunteers.

It was great to see so many of you at Family Art Night.  We hope you enjoyed our gallery, as well as our entertainment.  (DJ James is also available for birthday parties)

If you haven’t already done so, please send back your Passover Seder RSVP paper by Wednesday.

Happy Birthday Samarth!  We enjoyed celebrating with you.  We would like to welcome Aarin to our class.

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend

Marlene Buckwald and James Myricks

3’s Weekly Newsletter

Welcome back everyone from what was hopefully a relaxing Spring Break!

This week we have been quite busy preparing for the very meaningful and beautiful Jewish holiday of Passover. The children have been singing lots of Passover songs, and they are becoming familiar with the Four Questions. They have been learning all about how terrible it was when the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt, and they have been pretending to build and dig in the broiling hot sun for King Pharaoh who refused to let the Jewish people leave Egypt. Pharaoh had to be punished ten times. One punishment was frogs in his bed and frogs on his head!

Everyone created a beautiful Elijah’s cup as well as a gorgeous flowerpot centerpiece to adorn our classroom for our Passover seder which will be held on Wednesday morning April 20th. We are looking forward to having you join us that morning!

It may not feel quite like Spring yet, however we took the children on a Spring walk outside of our building, and we certainly did see flowers coming up from the ground, beautiful yellow Forsythia bushes, buds forming on the tree branches, and the grass growing.

The children had fun designing a beautiful windsock complete with lots of colorful streamers. They loved running outside with them and watching the streamers blowing in all directions.

Each child had the opportunity to paint a beautiful picture at the easel this week, and then they proceeded to tell their teacher and classmates all about their unique creation.

On Monday our class enjoyed Yoga with Ms. Jo, and on Wednesday they took out a book from our School Library to bring home.

We enjoyed having so many families join us on Wednesday evening for Family Art Night. It was a wonderful evening spent viewing your child’s fantastic artwork , socializing with other families, and having a delicious snack.

Mazel Tov to Harley and her family on the birth of Harley’s brother, Cylus Lev, born on Harley’s birthday March 25th!

Shabbat Shalom! Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Winter

Mrs. Mascarenhas

Pre-K Weekly Newsletter

It was great seeing all our wonderful families at our Pre-School Art Night. What an evening we had socializing with our children, parents and teachers. We were so excited to share with you are great projects and what your child was learning in class. Your children have been learning so much this year and having a great time while doing it. We thank you from the bottom of our heart for giving us the greatest gift you can, having your children in our class. Mrs. Parekh and I hope you had as much fun as we did spending a wonderful night showcasing your children’s art work.

We had a terrific and tremendous week learning the Letter “T”. We met our friend Tony the Tiger who told the children his favorite things like: tomatoes, tacos, trains, toads, and dancing the Tango. During show and tell, I also introduced the class to my Tanvi Doll. The children could not stop laughing because I told them she has a tongue, teeth, two eyes, two legs and two pony tails. The children then asked the Tanvi doll questions. She answered them all with words starting with “T”.

The class also welcomed a new student to our class Joaquin. It was so great to see the children welcome him in and help him to feel comfortable in his new class.

The fun didn’t stop at circle-time. We continued with the Letter “T” throughout the week. The children made their own clocks out of recycled records and we have been using them to teach the children about time. Nikita, Rhia and Aditi loved making the clock. Ian also compared his clock to the one on the wall and likes to tell us when it is time to clean-up and have snack. We also worked on our alphabet book by using toothpicks and tied-dye triangles. Anushree and Yashvi enjoyed cutting their “T” out and trying to explain what a toothpick is used for. We are also beginning to teach them their telephone number and I am using a song to help them memorize it. I will send home the words. At the end of the week, we worked on learning how to take care of their teeth as well as the different areas that we taste with on our tongue.

Important dates:

April 11:  Amazing Athletes

April 13: Show and Tell (Something about Spring)

April 15: Shabbat Party (Mitzvah Note/Tzedekah)

April 20: Family Passover Seder

*PLEASE SEND IN A FAMILY PICTURE BY WED, APRIL 13TH.

Have a great weekend

Mrs. Tilbor and Mrs. Parekh

Monday: Curiosity Club – Mrs. Winter and Mrs. Schemo

This week in our Curiosity Club Enrichment Class we continued our intriguing adventure under the sea! We loved singing the song “So many fish in the deep, blue sea what color fish does __________see?”

The children created a beautiful jellyfish complete with blue and green streamers for tentacles. We thought a jellyfish looked a little like a spaceship or an umbrella, but it is neither of these! We learned that a jellyfish has no bones and no brains!

Tuesday: Imagination Station –  Mrs. Tilbor and Mrs. Winter

We finished our Marc Chagall Stained glass windows. We also got ready for the Art Night with the help of the children.

Wednesday: Passport to Adventure – Mrs. Winter and Mrs. Schemo

This week in Passport to Adventure we continued our journey, travelling across the magnificent continent of Africa. We learned that there are lots of jungles in Africa, and that Africa is famous for its animal masks. We already completed beautiful zebra masks, and this week we began creating outrageous elephant masks. We enjoyed singing the song “An Elephant has a Great Big Trunk, that He Takes Wherever He Goes!”

Thursday: Storybook Network-Mrs. Tilbor and Mrs. Shemo

We read the Foolish Tortoise by Richard Buckley and Eric Carle. We learned about turtles and made our own turtles out of egg cartons.

Motion and Potions – Mrs. Tilbor and Mrs. Shemo

Motions and Potions were back in the kitchen this week. We made No-bake chewy cookies and Cream Bars. The children loved it. We finished our puppets and the children put on their own puppet show.