April 8, :23 פרשת תזריע

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1 The Week IN words April 8, :23 כט אדר ב תשע ו פרשת תזריע

2 PESACH IS AROUND THE CORNER!! Fulfill your SCRIP obligation and help our Yeshiva by purchasing gift cards! Discover Your Child s World We invite the parents and community to explore first-hand our curriculum, special programs and new ECE and KES initiatives. Tuesday, May 10 at 7:00 PM Please see the flyer for more details. Please come in and claim any items that your child may have lost over the past few months. All unclaimed items will be donated to the Community Closet. All unclaimed items are being sent on Monday!

3 Nursery news NURSERY I-MORAH TAMI As the Yom Tov of Pesach gets closer, the excitement in the Nursery 1 class continues to grow. We have been very busy learning about the many aspects of Pesach and the seder. The yeladim know that on Shabbos we use two challas, but under the matzoh cover, we have three matzos. One for Cohen, one for Levi and one for Yisroel. We have discussed the many types of foods that we eat during the Seder and learned the significance of each food found on the Seder plate. Through stories, songs, and arts and crafts, we have been learning all about Chag HaPesach, Our Haggadah is becoming thicker and thicker. We are practicing the Mah Nishtanah as well as many other songs about Pesach. We listened to the book Pesach For The Very Young by Rabbi Yaakov Hopkowitz. The Hebrew vocabulary words which we learned in conjunction with the Pesach story were: הגדה אפיקומן קערה זרוע ביצה מרור כרפס חרוסת חזרת מצה תפוח כוס של אליהו עבדים NURSERY II MORAH MIRIAM We are getting ready for pesach in nursery, learning all we need to know about cleaning, preparing and the Seder. When learning about matzah, the children each got some flour and water to create their own "dough." They made sure to do it quickly so that it wouldn't turn into chametz. We focused on the Seder this week, going through all the different parts. We played out many of the parts with our favorite one being tasting salt water! We learned many songs including, kadesh, orchatz..." and "I know the names of the Matzos well, kohen, Levi, yisrael." The children also enjoyed listening to the book the book "If You Give a Frog Matzo" by Rachel Shifra Tal. For the letter vav the children learned about the mitzvah of veahavta lereacha kamocha. We played out different scenes, pointing out how to be a good friend in each one. The children are trying especially hard to be nice to their friends. The children had a great time playing an aleph beis review game! In this week s parshat Tazria, We discussed an important mitzvah, which is not to speak Loshon Hara about another person. We focused our discussions on how we can speak nicely about our friends and families. The story Yettle s Feathers by Joan Rothenberg was read to the children to help illustrate that once Loshon Hara is said, it cannot be taken back. NURSERY SECULAR The nursery classes have been very busy with their units this week. NI continued their neighborhood unit. They completed their neighborhood bulletin board covered with their artwork of things and places that can be found in and around a neighborhood. They also had lots of fun during center time reading neighborhood themed books and dressing up like different community helpers. They set up a hospital, a fire house and a doctor s office. What fun! NII began a unit on the ocean and all the animals that live in the ocean. The children enjoyed learning about the many different creatures that live underwater and making their own sea creatures in the art center. They used sea shells to sort and count and had a wonderful time making and playing with seafoam. The children listened to many different books about the ocean and sea creatures including, The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

4 PRe-K PAGES JUDAIC STUDIES MORAH NECHAMA SECULAR STUDIES MORAH JUDY This week, we learned about Parashas Tazria. We spoke about being very careful not to speak Lashon Harah. We also learned about the mitzvah of Bris Milah. The children are busy practicing the Mah Nishtana and have been singing many songs about Pesach! They have been learning about the Simanei HaSeder and the are making beautiful Haggados in class. We also have been reviewing the names of the 10 makkos and learned about bedikas chometz.some of the books that the children listened to this week included The Mouse In The Matzah Factory by Francine Medoff, If You Give a Frog a Piece of Matzah by Rachel Shifra Tal and Baruch Learns about Pesach by Shmuel Kunda. We reviewed last week s Hebrew phrases and added the following: מתי בדיקת חמץ? בדיקת חמץ בלילה מתי ביעור חמץ? ביעור חמץ בבקר צ We also introduced the letter and added many words to our growing vocabularies. Some of the words that we learned were: צפרדע צואר צפור צב צלחת ציצית This week the children found so many ways to learn the letter Tt. We went on a tour of the school and found many items and people that begin with the letter Tt. We found Morah Terry, Morah Talia, tires, trees, tape and trash cans. We also welcomed Rabbi Shapiro, Yosef Aharon's tatty, who stood tall, with his arms out to his side to look like the letter T. He found many T words to share with our class. Some of the words were, tatty, teacher, Torah, tallis, and tomato. The Strassfeld twins, Daniel s brother and sister, came to our class to share their talents. Rochel does gymnastics and Dovid plays the melodica. The Fishman Twins, Elimelech's sister and brother, Basya and Abie also came in to our class. They were so much fun to play with! Rena Dreyfuss joined us as well. Rena is Esther's sister and she came in because she is two years old. For the letter Tt we learned facts about tigers. We learned that tigers have very keen eyesight at night for hunting their prey. They like to go in water, and they even like the snow. The Pre-K children are showing great enthusiasm about reading. We have been creating wonderful games to enhance their pre - reading skills. A favorite game this week was putting words onto building blocks, and building simple sentences. One of our sentences was, I am going to fly today. The children rearranged the words to create silly sentences. They also looked at each word to see which words were longer and which ones were shorter. We worked on rhyming words, especially those in the "at" family, such as c-at, p-at, s-at, b-at and m-at.

5 kindergarten CORNER JUDAIC STUDIES MOROT BAYLA, ESTY & RENA SECULAR STUDIES MOROT HEIDI & PEARLY Pesach is in the air! We are busy, busy, busy preparing for the upcoming yom tov. There is so much to do and so much to learn. We discussed the matza baking process and that time is of the essence. Once the flour gets wet the matza must be baked before 18 minutes pass, so that it doesn't become chometz. We also discussed what chometz is. Chometz is only crumbs from chometz food, not from matza. We talked about the importance of cleaning our houses before Pesach to make sure that they are chometz free and ready for Pesach. Our Haggadas are coming out beautiful. We are working hard on them every day! We have also been reviewing and learning the "ma nishtana". We learned the letter tzaddik sofis this week. We know that it comes at the end of many words. Some examples even relate to pesach like, chometz, orchatz and yachatz. We have already learned so many letters and are getting close to finishing! We learned about not speaking loshon hora, in this week's parsha. We made beautiful loshon hora stop signs to remind ourselves and others to be careful about the way we speak. Since Pesach is quickly approaching, we have been focused on our own "4 questions". One question we tried to answer was-why did the basket that carried Moshe across the Nile River, float? We learned that it was covered in tar. The tar kept the basket afloat. We learned where tar comes from and then made predictions as to whether or not an object would float or sink. We then placed these objects in water to see if our results matched our predictions. We used feathers, a block, a penny, a pencil, a button and Legos. The children were quite surprised when they noticed that some of their predictions turned out to have very different results! Another question we explored was why does Maror taste bitter? This led to a discussion about taste buds, and where they are located on the tongue. The children enjoyed tasting different foods while they were thinking about which part of their tongue they had to use to experience the correct taste. This week, our math unit focused on different types of measuring- taller, wider, longer, shorter, less than, greater than... the children were busy using objects from the class to compare these measurements. Related to one of our "4 questions " - how the pyramids were built, we tried making our own bricks and then tried to figure out how many of the homemade bricks would equal 1 real brick (the children had the opportunity to hold a few bricks to see how heavy they were). The class also tried to make a pyramid out of plastic cups and learned that the number of "bricks", in this case, cups, on the bottom level of the pyramid had to be a large number. All other layers has to be one less than the previous layer that was built. Next week we plan to finish the Superkids book that focused on Q, K and J. One more Superkid booklet to go! How exciting!

6 Erev Shabbos Parashas Tazria 5776 Dear Parents, The following letter was first issued several years ago. With the passage of time, the concerns remain most relevant and deserving of our attention. Upon entering the Toras Emes campus, one sees young children playing happily and running about. Initially, this school scene may resemble other early childhood and elementary school programs. However, what is not very obvious at first glance, is the extraordinary uniqueness of our school and the purpose for which this institution was created and continues to flourish. Yeshiva Toras Chaim Toras Emes is a Makom Torah that not only has the inherent sanctity of any Torah institution, but has an elevated sense of purpose, as well. We would like all who enter the Toras Emes campus to recognize they are entering more than a child s playground and school, but rather a location that represents a higher calling and a greater level of sanctity. One manifestation of this aspect of the school is the standard for dress we set for adults, that reflects the dignity and holiness of our sacred Torah. Personal standards of modesty are each individual s right to choose, but one who comes to a place of Torah should dress in a manner consistent with sanctifying the Torah, a manner of dress that reflects the Kedusha requisite to invite Hashem into our establishment. We urge each parent, family member and friend to keep this in mind when visiting our campus, whether for a quick delivery or pickup or for a school program. While it is clearly unintentional, men in shorts or without head covering or in open shirts are not demonstrating respect for our Makom Torah. Women in pants, low cut tops, short skirts, very short sleeves or tight fitting attire are unknowingly disregarding the sanctity of a Torah school. We are sure that no adult would willingly and purposefully act in a way that undermines the very values they work so hard for their children to achieve. Please contact me with any questions or comments. Toras Emes is a place where children and adults are inspired to learn and grow. If we are unified as parents and educators and strive together for greater accomplishments, we will, in turn, inspire our precious children to reach their vast potential in knowledge, values and spirituality. With best wishes for a wonderful Shabbos and Chodesh Tov, Rabbi Kalman Baumann

7 WEeKLY WRAP-UP