Celebrating Passover in Kindergarten!

Dear Kindergarten Families,

We had a very busy and fun week! We learned all about making Matzah and had our own Model Seder!

In Math, we are learning how to count forward and backward to and from 10 in preparation for addition and subtraction. We have been practicing figuring out parts of 10 (1 and 9, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, etc.). The children were counting how many objects they had and how many they would need to get to 10. For example, “I have 4, I need ____ to get to 10.” While practicing counting to 10, we made our own colorful number trains which you can see on our bulletin board.

In English Language Arts, we learned the letter Zz and the sound /z/ it makes (as in ‘zip’). We practiced forming upper and lowercase Zz letters using our Handwriting Without Tears books, wooden planks, and finding words that start with Z and drawing pictures of them. The children were very excited to be finished learning upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet and had a special celebration with “Letter Crowns,” and practiced writing every letter of the alphabet! In our Words Their Way Spelling program, we continued practicing reading and sorting words with short vowel /a/ and /u/ sounds and /ch/ digraphs.

In Social Studies, we continued our “Maps” unit. We reviewed the story “Make Way for Ducklings” by Robert McClosky and, while using the whiteboard, we figured out where the characters went on the map. We then colored in our own maps from this story, cut them apart and pasted them back together as a puzzle. Then, the children made characters traveling along the map just like in the story!

In Science, we continued our unit Exploring Plants and Animals. We learned about different types of fish. We compared 4 different types of fish and observed what was similar and different about them.

Judaic and Hebrew

This week we celebrated Passover on Thursday with class seders in half groups. We made a kiddush and washed our hands. The children sang the songs “Ma Nishtana”, “Kadesh Urchatz”, referring to the Hagada. We ate celery dipped in salt water which is the Karpas (usually parsley, celery or potatoes ) and Charoset which is a mixture of grinded apple and nuts and matzot (Matzas). The children ate eggs and lettuce as the Maror (bitter herb) and we searched for the Afikoman. Finally, we danced and sang “leshana Habaah Biyrushalayim.” (“next year in Jerusalem”).

Hebrew vocabulary: eifo – where , eifo haafikoman- where is the afikoman. afikoman, matza, kidush- bless

Chag Sameach! Happy Passover!

Irit, Regina, Rachel, and Ilana

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Learning about Reptiles – our guest turtle!