Today at our weekly staff meeting we started a new project. Each week a team of teachers will be presenting a section of the Journey Guide's Ethical Behavior.
Today a team from a three year old class presented a cute puppet show for Hashavat Avaydah, returning lost property. The story in the guide was perfect to act out with puppets and I bet most schools already have puppets for the animals, tha Rabbi and his wife. The question, how do you feel when you return something a friend has lost is a great question for an older three year old or a young 4. Kids this age can really relate to this question.
The teachers did a great job presenting today and I am looking forward to the future presentations.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
My staff made my week at our staff meeting on Wednesday! My long term goal of directing a Jewish Preschool is to know Jewish Values are being stressed and taught!
My teachers said now that we have been working on stressing Jewish Values so long it really has come to the front of our minds and we find ourselves framing conversations with the children around Jewish values. I feel like we are teaching kids to be menshes and the kids are getting it. A little boy found a dinosaur on the playground. This child might not have given the dino to a teacher in the past however he brought it to the teacher and said we need to find who lost this because it is important to return lost items to their owners. The children had learned about Hashavat Avaydiah in class and this little guy got it! The next day when we found the owner we made the connection between the two kids.
In a prek class someone had drawn on a table. The teacher talked to the kids about respecting and taking care of our property, Bal Tashcheet. The teacher also told the kids she did not want them to tell her who they thoght did it, Shmirat Lashon. If someone saw another person with their own two eyes they should go to that person and remind them to take care of our toys and equiptment. The kids seemed to really get this concept. It is amazing to watch them process this information! We are hearing children talk about doing the right thing. These children are ripe for learning about kindness, compasion and how we should live.
My teachers said now that we have been working on stressing Jewish Values so long it really has come to the front of our minds and we find ourselves framing conversations with the children around Jewish values. I feel like we are teaching kids to be menshes and the kids are getting it. A little boy found a dinosaur on the playground. This child might not have given the dino to a teacher in the past however he brought it to the teacher and said we need to find who lost this because it is important to return lost items to their owners. The children had learned about Hashavat Avaydiah in class and this little guy got it! The next day when we found the owner we made the connection between the two kids.
In a prek class someone had drawn on a table. The teacher talked to the kids about respecting and taking care of our property, Bal Tashcheet. The teacher also told the kids she did not want them to tell her who they thoght did it, Shmirat Lashon. If someone saw another person with their own two eyes they should go to that person and remind them to take care of our toys and equiptment. The kids seemed to really get this concept. It is amazing to watch them process this information! We are hearing children talk about doing the right thing. These children are ripe for learning about kindness, compasion and how we should live.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Shabbat Family Party
Today one of the three year old classes had a Shabbat Family Party.
The children made center pieces, decorated the room, each decorated a letter in the big sign welcoming everyone and made a Shabbat Present for their parents. The Shabbat Present was a decorated plaque with the blessing of the children on it.
Each family was also given a lovely pamphlet from Berman House Publications with the Shabbat Seder in it which is very user friendly.
The children were chanting Hachnasat Orchim (welcoming guests) all the way down to the party room. They gave tzdakeah on the way into the room and sat with their family guests.
Rabbi Tobin led the families in the Shabbat Seder and then everyone ate the food the children had prepared. They ended the party with the modified Birkat Hamazon our children recite every day after snack. The children enjoyed sharing their Shabbat party with their families while they learned the beautiful value of Hachnasat Orchim.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Beginning notes from the Director of Early Childhood Education
A bit of an introduction to start my blogging adventures! I have been the director at Beth Shalom's preschool for the last 16 1/2 years. This preschool has been around for over 60 years and is a wonderful preschool with a very rich history in Jewish Early Childhood Education.
I was so excited when Max informed me that we were going to be part of the vision documentation project!
Max came last week and did a fabulous in-service with our staff on Jewish Ethics and values in our classrooms. While we have always stressed ethical and moral behavior in our classrooms, with the exception of one of our 3 year old classes we have not focused on labeling most of these values. We have always labeled Tikun Olam and Tzedakah but we have not labeled other values consistently.
As we were processing "Why are Jewish Values important in the life our classrooms?" some of the comments teachers made were:
Max helped us process and focus on the importance of including the Hebrew names of Jewish Values as well as incorporating as many Jewish Values into daily classroom activities and curriculum as possible.
Today in her weekly newsletter to the parents, one of the preK teachers reported her class would be focusing on Derech Eretz-common courtesy, treating every person with respect. This is a very appropriate and timely value to teach preK kids second semester, as they are getting testy with adults as well as their classmates! The other beauty of this newsletter note is we are teaching many of the parents as we teach the children.
Tomorrow in our weekly staff meeting we will be talking about how each class will be enriching their future curriculum.
Please check back as we continue down this road of growing and improving our wonderful school!
I was so excited when Max informed me that we were going to be part of the vision documentation project!
As we were processing "Why are Jewish Values important in the life our classrooms?" some of the comments teachers made were:
- They help us live a life of meaning,
- Shalom Bayit
- God gave us the values and laws, more laws than any other people-a blue print to live by.
Max helped us process and focus on the importance of including the Hebrew names of Jewish Values as well as incorporating as many Jewish Values into daily classroom activities and curriculum as possible.
Today in her weekly newsletter to the parents, one of the preK teachers reported her class would be focusing on Derech Eretz-common courtesy, treating every person with respect. This is a very appropriate and timely value to teach preK kids second semester, as they are getting testy with adults as well as their classmates! The other beauty of this newsletter note is we are teaching many of the parents as we teach the children.
Tomorrow in our weekly staff meeting we will be talking about how each class will be enriching their future curriculum.
Please check back as we continue down this road of growing and improving our wonderful school!
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