January 9, :28 יח טבת תשעה פרשת שמות

Transcription

1 The Week IN words January 9, :28 יח טבת תשעה פרשת שמות

2 CALENDAR NOTES January 11 31st Anniversary Dinner January 13-Parent Teacher Conferences January Mid-Winter Break January 26 Classes Resume DIRECTIONS TO JUNGLE ISLAND Jungle Island is located at 1111 Parrot Jungle Trail, off I-395 (MacArthur Causeway), between Downtown Miami and South Beach. From I-95 Take I-395 East (MacArthur Causeway) exit 2D. Cross over the bridge and make your first right after the bridge onto Parrot Jungle Trail. Follow the road around and under the bridge to the parking garage on the lefthand side.. From the East (Miami Beach) Take I-395 West (MacArthur Causeway), and make the first right turn after Palm Island, next to the Miami Yacht Club. Make the first left turn onto Parrot Jungle Trail and the parking garage will be on the right-hand side. 31st Anniversary Journal and Dinner We look forward to greeting you at our annual dinner this Sunday night, January 11th at the Treetop Ballroom at Jungle Island. If you haven t made your reservation, please go online to or call the office at ext Hope to see you there! Have a great Shabbos! From The Office Of Admissions Dear Parents, I am writing to let you know that now is the time to submit applications for your children who will be new Early Childhood (N, PK and K) applicants for the school year. We are very excited that we have received many inquiries from new families, but as always we would like to extend a sibling priority to our current families. In order to receive priority for siblings, we must receive your child's application by Monday, January 15th. To complete an online application, please log onto our website and click on admissions. To request a paper copy of the application, please contact me at the number below. I look forward to working with you. Mrs. Miryam Schloss Director of Admissions mschloss@ytcteam.org

3 ***SOME APPOINTMENTS STILL AVAILABLE!!!*** Effective Parent-Teacher communication is essential to ensure the success of our Early Childhood Program. We have therefore set aside two evenings for the teachers to meet with you to discuss your child s progress. Conferences for Nursery, Pre-KII & KI will take place on Tuesday, January 13 from 6:20-9:00 p.m. Please note that appointments are scheduled at ten minute intervals. If you come late to your appointment, you will not be able to have additional time. *****Please be sure to park in the parking lot and enter through the parking lot entrance.. There will be a security guard to direct you. There is no entrance onto the campus from

4 Nursery news JUDAIC STUDIES MOROT SHULAMIS & TAMI The Nursery children loved hearing the many beautiful midrashim about the life of Moshe Rabbenu. He was placed in a teivas gomeh by his mother, Yocheved, and hidden in the river amongst the tall reeds. As Miriam watched her brother Moshe, Batya, the daughter of Paroh came down to the river and saw Moshe crying. She reached out her hand and Hashem made a nes occur. Her hand stretched all the way to the teivah. We also learned that Bnei Yisrael became slaves and that Moshe Rabbenu was commanded by Hashem to lead Bnei Yisrael out of Mitzrayim. We sang the song Bang, Bang, hold Your Hammers Low. The children enjoyed listening to the book Eli And His Little White Lie by Goldie Golding. For our Hebrew language unit focusing on Ochel and Brachos vocabulary, the children were introduced to the following phrases: אני אוהב לאכל בננה אני אוכל תפוז אני אוהב לשתות מים אני אוהבת לשתות מיץ אבא שותה יין אמא שותה מיץ ילד שותה חלב ילדה שותה מים יש לי חלב, מיץ ומים We also had fun making a food art project representing baby Moshe in the teivah. SECULAR STUDIES MOROT SHULAMIS & SUSAN This week, we continued our unit on Community Helpers. In art, we created police badges and made a police station out of different shaped pieces of construction paper. We listened to the stories Curious George Visits The Police station by Margaret and H.A. Rey, Firehouse Dog by Amy Richard Hutchings, Just Going To The Dentist by Mercer Meyer and Postman Pat To the Rescue by John Cunlittle. During dramatic play time we created a police Station complete with police officers in costume, cars, trucks, and real tickets! We also set up a Nursery Hospital this week complete with our own Nursery Nurses and Nursery Doctors all dressed up in costumes as well. We really enjoyed learning a new song this week, I m a Police Officer, to the tune I m A Little Teapot I m a police officer With my star I help people Near and far If you have a problem Call on me, and i will be there one, two, three In our science corner, we worked with magnets and materials that are attracted to magnets such as pipe cleaners, paper clips and different objects that we found all around the class. We also used our magnifying glasses to look at many different seashells and animal pictures, and used little science jars to place shells in to examine as well. What little scientists we have become!

5 PRe-K PAGES JUDAIC STUDIES MOROT HEIDI & NECHAMA SECULAR STUDIES MORAH JUDY This week, in Parashas Shemos, the children were fascinated to hear the story of Moshe s birth and his life in the palace. We spoke about the Emunah of his mother, Yocheved, and his sister, Miriam, who were not afraid to disobey Paroh s terrible decree. The children learned that Moshe ran away from Mitzrayim to Midyan. In Midyan, Moshe married Tzipporah. When Hashem spoke to Moshe as he stood near the burning bush, Hashem told him to lead Bnei Yisrael out of slavery and back to Eretz Yisroel. We are continuing our unit on Brachos. The children are playing various games to reinforce saying the correct Bracha over specific foods. The children enjoyed using different foods from the housekeeping center to practice the Brachos that they have already learned. They have also been playing Brachos Lotto to help reinforce the Brachos that were taught. This week, the letter Tes was introduced. Some of the words that the children learned were: טבעת טפה טלית טבע טוב טלפון The phrases we practiced this week for our Hebrew language unit were: אני אוכל תפוח אני אוכלת תפוח אני אוכל תפוז אני אוכלת תפוז The excitement in Pre-K continued as our new artist, Agam, was introduced. The children were fascinated by his colorful, huge works of art. He created works of art that could take up entire office buildings! Many of Agam's sculptures were made of twisted metal pieces. The children were especially taken by Agam's illusions that showed menorahs and magen davids within the art pieces. The Agam art creations by the Pre-K children were a great copy of his style and techniques. This week, Pre-K also learned about self portraits. They displayed pride in their own self portraits, and exchanged compliments with their peers about their self portraits. They were able to add bows, kippahs, hats, hair color, expressions and other personal touches to their artistic creations. Through this art unit, the children have learned that they are all artists. Thank you to Akiva and Uriel's Nana for joining our class to talk about art. The children enjoyed learning about Agam from a real local artist. It was interesting to learn that sometimes artists incorporate their own family members into their paintings. Thank you also to Mrs. Neiss, Suri's mother, for baking Marc Chagall style candy cookies with our Pre-K1 class. The cookies had candy glass windows inside. In math, the Pre-K children practiced recognizing and writing the numerals It would be helpful to practice the numbers at home each day. Our letter this week was Jj. Some Jj words the children listed were, jump, joy, Jack-in-the box, jewels, joke, junk and jaguar. A favorite letter Jj story was Just Dog by Hiawyn Oram. It was a pleasure to meet with many Pre-KI parents to talk about your children s progress and to show off their beautiful Pre-KI Art Gallery. We look forward to meeting Pre-KII parents next week, and to display our Art Gallery as well. אני רוצה עוגה אני רוצה עוגיה

6 kindergarten CORNER JUDAIC STUDIES MOROT BAYLA & RENA SECULAR STUDIES MOROT HEIDI & PEARLY The yeladim have become so much more aware of the brachos that they make on food as our brachos unit continues to evolve. The bracha Borei Minei Mezonos was featured this week as we experimented baking various cookies and cupcakes as well as dipping some mezonos food into chocolate. (We still recite the bracha of Borei Minei Mezonos on it.) Many new words were added to our growing Hebrew vocabulary such as: עוגה עוגיה קמח ביצים We also practiced saying the following phrases: אבא שותה יין אמא שותה מים יש לי עוגה תן לי עוגיה We made beautiful cake plates to grace our Shabbos tables. We also set up a makolet (grocery store) in our housekeeping center. We enjoyed shopping for different foods and sorting them by the appropriate bracha. Please continue to send in empty boxes to our makolet. We loved hearing the story Adventures In Mezonos Land by Bracha Rishona. The best was our delicious mezonos snack. Thank you for sending in foods for our mezonos snack. This week, we continued reviewing the letters of the Aleph Beis, from aleph through chaf sofis. We are now ready to move on to the next letter, Lamed! Please continue practicing the letters at home from our Aleph Beis sheets or from a siddur or sefer that you have in your home. We are excited to start the next sefer in the Torah, Sefer Shemos. We heard about the hardships that Bnei Yisroel experienced in Mitzrayim. We heard about how Moshe was saved by Batya, Paroh's daughter, and how he was raised by her. Though Moshe had all the luxuries of living in the king s palace, he was always concerned with the hardship of his fellow Jews. The children were amazed to hear how Hashem appeared to Moshe from the burning bush (sneh) and told him that he was chosen to be the leader to take the Jews out of Mitzrayim. We enjoyed listening to the book A Little Girl Named Miriam by Dina Rosenfeld. In Project Derech, we learned that it is a mitzva not to say no to a parent. The Kindergarten classes continued learning about pollution. We learned that air gets polluted with smoke from chimneys, factories, fires and even people smoking. The dirty smoke goes into the air and people breathe it, sometimes making them sick. This week, we had a class discussion about water and land pollution. The water gets polluted from people throwing garbage into the water, boats that leak gas, or oil spills. A lot of fish die or, even worse, the fish that swim in these dirty waters are caught and then sold to people. These fish are contaminated and if we eat them, they could make us sick. Land pollution is the worst. It's all over the place, on the streets, around houses and even at parks. Throwing garbage on the floor makes our world, the world that Hashem gave us, very ugly. We also get a lot of germs from having pollution around us. We finished the week with an experiment. We had a clean bucket of water and the children added garbage, oil and dirt to it. Using tongs and a strainer, they tried to clean it. It was very hard to do, and the water still stayed dirty. The kids are enjoying writing all about pollution in their books. This week, we were introduced to two Superkids, Ettabetta and Hot Rod. Ettabetta loves to play games, do puzzles and complete mazes. In her book, we learned the letter Ee and its sound. The children read a lot of E words. Hot Rod loves to race in his fast car. In his book, the children learned what sound the letters TH make when they are next to each other. They learned the sight word the. The children are really enjoying working and reading in their Superkids letter book. In math, we continued learning about the five and tens frames. It is important that the children picture teen numbers as tens, and then some more ones. For example, thirteen is a set of tens, and then three more ones. Fourteen is a set of tens, and then four more ones. We practiced a lot of counting using tens frames. The children know that when they see a tens frame, there is no need to count all the markers; they automatically know it's ten!

7 Erev Shabbos Parashas Shemos, 5775 Dear Parents, How important a factor is intrinsic motivation and meaning for a person to achieve success in life? Who is more likely to succeed in school a child blessed with intelligence and talents or one not so amply endowed, but who understands his own worth and the value of his efforts? A backdrop to the entire narrative in this week s Parsha, is the forced labor that millions of Jewish men were subjected to. The Torah tells us (1:11): they built treasure cities for Pharoah Pisom and Raamses. The Gemara (Sota 11a) tells us these names indicate the building was done on unsuitable land, and the structures did not last; they either toppled over or were swallowed into quicksand. Rav Avraham Hakohein Pam, zt l, asked, what was Pharoah s purpose in initiating a project that went to waste? Why did he not capitalize on the free labor of millions of people, working for decades, to build himself a legacy of greatness and grandeur? Rav Pam points out that the answer to that question is right there in the Pasuk quoted above: In order to torture them in their burdens Pharoah understood that no matter how hard the Jews would have worked, had they been able to see their labor bearing fruit in the form of a monumental edifice, they would have felt some satisfaction despite the brutality they endured in its construction. Pharoah, in his cruelty, was so intent on denying his slaves even that satisfaction, he was willing to let all his expenses and all his free labor go to waste. This lesson has fundamental importance in our task of raising successful children. Every human has an innate drive to live a life of meaning and purpose. It is profound torture to rob a person of a feeling of purpose, that what he does is meaningless. How does that apply to our young children? We all know that for most children, unless they are being asked to eat ice-cream, play ball or stay up past bedtime, it s very hard for them to appreciate the purpose of what is being asked. Why eat vegetables, why do homework, why clean up his/her room? All the prizes and rewards or threats and punishments will not make that much of a long lasting difference. And yet, there comes a tipping point in every child s life when emotional maturity kicks in, and they do what s right, what is necessary, because they ve gained something of an understanding and appreciation for why it is important. This awareness needs to guide our approach to our children even from a very young age. We can focus on helping our children understand there is a purpose to life and there is a reason for acting the way we do. Of course, at a very young age we put 98% of our energies into habitualizing children s good behavior, perhaps saying, because Mommy said so. However we should always be ready with a simple, short explanation. Not that the child does things because he or she decides it makes sense, that they are somehow the final authority. But part of their chinuch is to understand there is a reason for everything, and that it s good to ask questions and seek to understand. Surely their parents and teachers have a reason, even if it s currently unfathomable to the child, but like the Ben Chochom, the wise son, in the Hagaddah, our children should seek an understanding of what they are doing. This approach will produce thinking people, who have an appreciation that there is meaning and purpose in life. They are more likely to apply rational thinking to their own behavior and value judgments. They are most likely to work purposefully towards a higher goal in academics, healthy relationships and spiritual growth. They are therefore more likely to succeed. And they most assuredly will remain closely connected to the parents that made the extra effort to bring meaning and purpose to their life. Have a purposeful, motivated Shabbos! Rabbi Kalman Baumann

8 WEeKLY WRAP-UP