Bringing Yom Kippur to life in our classroom!

One of the ways we empower children to learn appropriate behaviors is by giving them opportunities to role-play, and experience different situations in a make believe setting.

As a preparation for Yom Kippur, we set up a "synagogue Center" or as its traditionally called in yiddish a "Shul" (pronounced "shool").

In-case some of our children might attend a "shul" on the Holiday, we set up all sorts of items that might be found in a shul, along with chairs in a row.  So the children would be familiar and comfortable in the new setting.

 

 We practiced talking softly, and behaving as we would in a Synagogue!

Items for children to play with included: Torah, Siddur, Yad- pointer, Bima (table to read torah from),Kippot (head-coverings), Tallit (prayer shawl)

 

 

Ilani blowing the shofar like the Rabbi will do at the conclusion of Yom kippur!

After he blew the Shofar Ilani said "it sounds like crying" !

He remembered from Rosh Hashana circle time that the shofar sounds

like a baby cry, we are crying to Hashem.

Chani was watching her baby at shul!

 Trying on Slippers for Yom Kippur! The Yom Kippur Center included a shelf full of crocs and other non leather shoes- as is the custom of many to wear on Yom Kippur.

On the topic of Shoes and slippers....

Morah Lisa came up with a new game that the children LOVE called 'the shoe store' (which we've been doing each day at the end of outside time!)

  When playing outside, most of the children love to take off their shoes, enjoying the feeling of sand and grass in their toes...

This results in shoes being located all over the yard!

Morah Lisa puts all their shoes mix matched and each child gets to come up and sees how fast they can find their match!

 

 

All the Jr Rabbis reading from the Torah

Rachel, Mendel & Noach leading the congregation :)

 At the Audio center we set up a CD  with songs that might be heard in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur. 

Trash Cans & Treasure Chests!

For our older children, we wanted to give them a tangible way to understand what is expected from them on the upcoming Holiday of Yom Kippur. 

At first glance...Yom Kippur seems like its not a "kids Holiday"

but at Gan Camarillo, we make sure to make it meaningful and appropriate for our preschoolers!

 

I showed the children these 2 containers with pictures of a trash can and a jewelery box on them.

I asked the children---What do we do with trash?

They all answered we THROW IT AWAY! 

 

 

I then asked them what we put inside a jewelry box?

They all told me things like- special things, treasures, important stuff, things we want to keep.

I explained to them, on Yom Kippur, Hashem wants us to look at all the things we DO and to sort them out! We need to take some things we might have done, and place them in the bin! (so we don't see them/do it again), and we need to take some of the things we did over the past year....and place them in a treasure box! We want to keep them, so we can do it again and again!

 Each child had a turn to pick out a picture from my special box.

The box contained all sorts of pictures from children sharing their toys, to being gentle with little babies, to listening with their ears, to pushing one another.

 

 After showing the picture to their friends, the children had to decide what they would do with what the picture described! Would they throw it in the bin? or keep it in a treasure box?

 I was so proud of our students...who all knew what they should do!

 

How the I-phone enriched our family bond & conveyed a special Rosh Hashana Message!

Rosh Hashana is definitely in the air at Gan!

 This week we welcomed many new students to the Gan Camarillo family!

It is appropriate that Rosh Hashana - the Jewish new year comes around at the same time as the beginning of the school year. As the lessons of Rosh Hashana can be useful in helping the children feel comfortable and safe in their new surroundings! 

We are focusing on Hashem (G-d) loving us and protecting us. 

Rosh Hashana is the time that we ask Hashem to be our King again, to  take us as his people and take care of us. We ask Hashem to give us what we  need and show us the way things work.

In our classrooms too, our students  come in very much dependent on their teachers. They are often somewhat timid  and while they may not verbalize it, they ask that us Morah's "be their king," that  we care for them and show them the way things work around here.  They need to know we will always take care of them and meet their needs. 

These first few weeks we focused not just on the traditions of Rosh Hashana (as you will see in this blog) but also on the deeper messages of the Holiday- which so beautifully tie in to transitioning the children into a smooth start to the school year.

Keep reading to the end to see how we used the Iphone to send this message over to the children!

 

 

Environment as the third teacher...Rosh Hashana Centers

Audio Center- With multiple head phones so more than one child can listen to the shofar sound at once!

 

Science- In addition to tasting honey at circle time, the children enjoyed feeling the honey sensory bag, and observing honeycomb- both inside honey and dried out.

Holiday Literature along with real apple and pomegranate to look and feel the difference.

Art- Painting apples to use as Shana Tova cards, and getting inspiration from looking at a picture of an apple.

We offered the children red, orange, and yellow- to mix and work with,  just like the real apple in the picture- that we offered the children to use as inspiration for their art.

What does Rosh Hashana mean to a Preschooler? And how we used the Iphone to bring over this message!

This year we focused on the concept of Hashem being our king and loving us as a parent!

 Hashem is like our father! He loves us, reassures us and protects us!

Specially for some of the new children in our classroom, the love of their mom and dad is in their mind. Coming to school for the first time, hearing their parent saying 'I love you' as they drop them off and reassuring the child they will return soon and pick them up with a big hug!

 

 

To help the children understand Hashems love, we made the connection between the love they feel from their real mother and father, to the love Hashem has for each of us.

We started off with a circle time about babies. Using a doll we reenacted what a baby does: cry! Babies need to be taken care of! We spoke about the fact that we all started off like babies! We had fun pretending we were babies and crying for our mommies...

We spoke about the fact that our parents are always there for us and thinking about us and loving us... no matter what. Hashem loves us that way too!

To make this a  meaningful lesson for the children we took videos of each child's parent with a 3 second love message for the children to watch.

At circle time one by one each child received a special spot light --- watching his/her parent say how much they love them! This was so special, and when we spoke about Hashem loving us so much...the parallel to the love they receive from their mommy or daddy---made it  SO REAL.

We went on to describe the feelings our parents have when we do things they want us to do....

Just like when we listen to our mommy or daddy when they tell us to brush our teeth, they say 'yay!' When we give tzedaka or do a mitzvah, Hashem says 'yay!'

We had fun naming some of the mitzvahs we can do and jumping up and saying 'yay!'

Chani was feeding her baby!

Our dramatic play area gave the children a chance to play the role of a parent and continue this special lesson while playing!

We added diapers, changing table, baby bottles, bibs ...to bring these feelings to life!

Measuring how big Noach got, compared to when he was a baby!

"My mommy loves me!!"

Ilan watching his Mommys message on a video

Noach watching his Ima's message on the video!

Jacob's face full of joy, seeing his mommy on the screen!

Yitzi laughing and asked to watch it over and over :)

What should "Sweet new year" mean to your 3 year old? VIDEO included!

 We chant the song, "Dip the apple in the honey....have a happy, sweet new year!"

We are constantly wishing everyone a "Sweet new year"... But what does that mean in the mind of our preschoolers?

Most of us are familiar with the traditional symbol of honey with apples... but what is a 2, 3 & 4 year old taking in?

Are they connecting the concept of the taste of honey and what the new year will look like? What should a sweet new year look like for a preschooler anyway? 

 

These are all questions we asked ourselves, as we prepared the curriculum for Rosh Hashanah.

Chanie tastes the sweet sticky honey on a slice of Apple.

We began our circle time by allowing the children to TASTE the sweet Honey. 

Every child had smiles on their faces as they tasted the delicious honey.  

 

The next step for us, was to help the children connect the sweet taste of honey- to a year filled with SWEET THINGS ...

Ie: Mitzvot...Good Deeds!

 

 

To make this connection- we created a "We do SWEET things" center.

It consisted of a grand Honey Jar on a white board.

  Above the white board was a dry erase marker and honey stick! What we did throughout the first week of school, was keep our eyes open for SWEET things the children might be caught doing. As soon as one of us saw something SWEET  (kind, thoughtful, caring) we called the children involved in the action- to the white board, and began drawing as we retold the SWEET action that they did.

After we "relived" the sweet story, the child received a drop of honey on their fingertip to enjoy ;-)

 

Check out this short video of one such episode! (Wish we could have video footage for each child...so you could see the beaming faces and joy in doing SWEET things!)

 

 

We were very intentional all week long to use the word SWEET to describe Mitzvot and nice things that we caught the children doing- so they would associate SWEET NEW YEAR---with a year filled with MITZVOT!

Here are some examples of sweet things we found....

Yitzy & Shua & Yaisef shared toys in the kitchen corner! Yaisef patiently waits his turn.

 Rochel, Mendel and Noach were playing together.....pretending they moved into a new house!  It was so sweet to watch them as they LISTENED to each others ideas, giving each other turns to be the one to decide what will happen next in the game!

Morah Shira draws a picture of what she noticed while we were playing outside. While lots of friends were taking turns on the roller coaster car ride, Jacob went over to his friend Yaisef and asked him if he would like a turn, and then saved his friend a turn!

 

By the third day, the children had totally caught on to what it means to HAVE A SWEET NEW YEAR!  A year filled with Mitzvot! (True happiness :-)

 

 

To the point that some of the older ones began asking to use the marker themselves, to draw their own sweet scenarios while the other children watched!

 

Here are some of the many sweet things our class did!!

Ellah- "I helped my friends I gave them water!" 

 

Jacob: "I played trains with Yaisef"

Noach: "I gave Menucha a ride on my back"

Mendel- "I was nice to Noach when he wanted to play with the car I wanted"

Rochel: "I let Mendel have space on the Couch.

 

Ilan- "I play hide and seek, see I covered my eyes so I cant see "

Levi- "put away my lunch box"

Menucha- " I helped Morah Lisa sweep the floor after lunch!"

Why Pomegranates?

Why do we eat "Rimonim ~ Pomegranates" on Rosh Hashanah?

During circle time one day, with our older children- we drew a "Rimon" on the whiteboard! 

A "Rimon" has lots of seeds. Some people say it has 613 seeds, which is the number of Mitzvot in the Torah! (Maybe towards the end of this year we can attempt to count the seeds!)

We did a fun activity to teach the children the significance of pomegranates on Rosh Hashana!

We took out the special "Treasure Chest" and each child had a chance to put their hand in, and pick out a picture---all the pictures were that of Mitzvot.

After choosing a mitzvah, the child stuck the picture into one of the many seeds we drew all around the board!

It was a fun activity to remind us why we eat pomegranates! We hope we will have a year filled with as many mitzvot as there are seeds in a pomegranate!