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 :)