Purim Played out in our Palace!

After living peacefully in our "Mordechai & Esther's Jewish Home" the stage was set to begin the Purim Story! (Megillah)

We created an additional center in our classroom:  King Achashverosh's palace.

In contrast to the Jewish home, this was more focused on dresses, glamour, jewels and mirrors.
There was definitely a contrasting atmosphere between the 2 centers. Which is what the Jewish people  would have experienced upon attending the Kings feast in his palace!  We wanted the children to feel the difference between the flashy showy palace and the Mitzvah filled home of Mordechai and Esther.

We created a dress up shelf that offered a self correcting way of learning responsibility (putting things away after you use them) and at the same time helped us to keep our costumes organized. 

There were pictures of the different characters from the Megillah, that accompanied a tray to hold that characters costume.

 

Of course with the dressing up some of the children had fun mixing and matching different article of clothing, it definitely put smiles on our faces!

To help the children with taking turns, since a lot of children wanted to be the king and queen at once. ...We had little paper people (one for each child with their name or pic on it) and a chart to place it on, for the children to "get on line" for a turn! This was a great way for the children to visually see and patiently wait for their turn.

Check out Jacob excitement in being the King!

The king puppet helped us understand what King Achashverosh was like, he had a big feast in order to show off all his wealth. Now our class really understood after living in our "Jewish home" center, the difference of how Mordechai treated them and how the King was treating them at the feast.

King Achshverosh picked Esther to be his new queen!

We discussed how uncomfortable this was for her, as she wanted to be in her own home doing mitzvah's!!  However, she knew this was Hashem's plan and EVEN in the palace Hashem will be watching over her!

This was a powerful practical lesson for our class and explored it for a couple days. Even when we feel sad or scared just like Esther must have felt when she first became Queen, Hashem is helping us and is with us -every step of the way!

 Yitzi picking chani to be the next queen.

 

Katherine enjoying her throne.

 

We lightly touched on Haman and used it as a way to bring out a positive lesson. 

In the story....Haman wanted everyone to bow down to him!

For the children to understand what "bowing down" meant, we talked about what Jewish people do when they daven. The only bowing down is to Hashem during prayer.

We placed pictures of Jewish people praying to Hashem next to wicked Haman for them to see the contrast and encourage conversation amongst the children.

A beautiful moment..

During circle time there were two children fighting over a certain toy. Levi took the Mordechai puppet and started helping his friends to come up with a solution! 

The two friends quietly listened to what "Mordechai" had to say and it was beautifully resolved! :)

After learning about Haman and how he was quite mean, we asked what should they do?? Cry?, listen to Haman?...

Mordechai took the children and learned torah keeping faith in Hashem to help save them!

At the end of the Purim Story,  Mordechai was honored with riding the Kings Horse! The children had fun dressing up as Mordechai...and riding the horse!

Hamentashen and shapes fun!

Before we headed to the baking table we learned with a circle paper how to create one! A circle turned into a triangle!

Each child received a turn to practice on the paper circle ....then they all were able to make their own hamentashen triangle!

Levi was so excited that he got his circle into a triangle!

A circle with the dough!

Turned into a triangle hamentashen!

Levi helping out with rolling out the dough

With all these shapes we also drew shapes on papers and with the play dough the children had to manipulate it to the correct shape.

Rochel working really hard to fill it all in.

Katherine decorating her Megillah cover.

Glitter glue is a great way for the children to  control the amount that they want.

It was time to celebrate! With Purim coming in a week and a double month of Adar we cranked up the music and got them moving!

Bouncing to the music :)

Finger sponge painting

Ilani liked the hand print idea

Rochel "A blue star fish"

Menucha " A water fall"

Rock Family!

Rock Family!

Rocks start with the letter R!

Morah Bubby brought in a beautiful collection of rocks that we turned into characters!

We also worked on writing the letter R, both upper and lower case!

Which Jewish Hero was a PRESCHOOL TEACHER? VIDEO included!

Jewish Holidays are a golden opportunity for us to instill life lessons in our students...

 and at the same time help the students realize that our Jewish history is not a bunch of stories that remain in the books- they are stories that come to life- with relevant, living lessons!

We pride ourselves in taking a step back, visualizing the story through the eyes of a two, three or four year old...and only then- choosing how to tell the story, so that the lesson we want them to gain- is bright and clear!

 

Traditionally the Purim story goes....

There's a big king who got rid of his pimply wife vashti... chooses a new Jewish queen named Esther.... and she is a key factor in saving the Jewish people from the wicked Haman who wanted to kill us all.

At Gan Camarillo...

(The story illuminated by Chassidus- click here for "What is Chassidus?")

We wanted ESTHER & MORDECHAI to receive as much of the lime-light as possible! We wanted the children to emulate and want to be like Mordechai & Esther. 

According to Chassidus, it was Mordechai's teaching Torah to the Jewish Children, in the face of Haman's decree not to- that tipped the scale for the savior of the Jewish people. 

Mordechai was a PRESCHOOL TEACHER! There was nothing more important to him, than giving every Jewish child a Jewish education, to ensure the continuation of our people. He did this holy work and it was from this merit that we are celebrating today!

So...this is how the story played out at Gan...

Before introducing the palace with kings and queens... we wanted to ensure our students recognized WHO Mordechai and Esther were.

We spent this week focusing on:

ESTHER AND MORDECHAI'S JEWISH HOME.

 

 It was amazing to watch what unfolded this past week as we lay the foundations for the Purim story.

The children were welcomed by Esther and Mordechai on either side of the 'hall way'.

Our dramatic play center turned into "Mordechai & Esther's  Jewish home." 

We filled their home with items that might have been found if we went back in time and were invited by Mordechai and Esther themselves.

Lots of Judaica, Shabbat supplies: candles, challah, flowers...

 

We put out stuffed stocking challah's for the children to practice braiding Challah!

Torah scroll, tzedaka.

Aron observing Jacob practicing his three braid technique

Chani lighting the Shabbat candle. We used wording like "you are lighting just like Esther" to really make them feel connected to the characters of the Purim Story.

Shua giving Tzedakah which is also a great fine motor skill!

In the 'hall way' we placed pictures of the children doing mitzvahs to make that connection that just like Mordechai and Esther-- we are doing such beautiful mitzvahs!!

(The pictures included;:A picture of when we went to a lady in Leisure village to give her a pumpkin pie, Shabbos party, hugging a friend etc)

'Mini Mini Gan'

Being that Mordechai taught the Jewish Children Torah....we made a miniature "Gan" classroom, as an extension of Mordechai & Esther's Jewish home!

 It included a circle time center- (similar to our circle time area) for the children to role play teaching children Torah.

It was also quite funny watching them mimic us Morah's! :)

We placed a miniature 'mitzvah tree' for all the mitzvah notes that they can write for one of the dolls or a friend. Alef beis chart with a siddur to daven at circle time, Torah's to hug. All very real to them and now had a new meaning---> Mordechai did this too!!

 

Watch this one minute video we caught, of the little ones "role-playing" in Mordechai's Mini Mini Gan!

 

Levi offers shua to help him find the place, and the overflowing atmosphere of love and kindness is so sweet to watch !

To give them some memories of our circle time we placed pictures on the wall of the miniature classroom of past circle times.

This was also a great discussion starter amongst the children.

Menucha and Mendel being co- teachers ;)

It was also great to see the cooperation amongst them taking turns, picking what songs they will sing and some of them made up new rules for their class!

Yitzi role playing Mordechai. He had a great turn out!

Rochel being a multi tasking teacher singing Alef beis, giving out stickers and managed to write mitzvah notes (notice the tree) for her whole class.

Reena saying word for word of the Shema prayer

Aron was so proud of his doll that he received a sticker !

Yehudis got many stickers from Morah Rochel! :)

What was so beautiful to see was the children connecting to Mordechai and Esther through out the day!

Here we were in middle of davening and the tzedakah helper by mistake dropped the tzedakah box and they all rushed to help "just like mordechai and esther would do!".

Aron dressing up as Mordechai. After being asked where he was headed ; 

"To chabad" :)

Menucha said she was Esther making salad for poor people.

Our circle times took place in Mordechai and Esthers home and we had many discussions about all the beautiful mitzvah's they would do just like them! So empowering!

Turned into a challah class, one day these boys will be amazing husbands G-d willing ;)!

Levi was very proud of the mitzvah sticker he received at the end of the day.

Rochel enjoying some sensory fun creating designs with the paint inside a bag.