Dibuk Chavarim, Caring for Friendships, has been the theme of the first two weeks of camp.
In the prek group the kids learned Henai Matov U'Maniyim as well as played games with learning names of all their friends in their group and talking about the importance of knowing people's names.
Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold. These words in this song helped the kids realize the importance of friends, old and new!
The next day the kids were given a rock and told to note everything about the rock. They then closed their eyes and pictured their rocks and finally put their rocks in a box with other kids rocks and they could each find their own rock. When the kids talked about the importance of looking friends in the eyes when they talked they realized their rocks needed eyes so they put googly eyes on their rocks and then they named them and got to take them home to keep their new friends. The kids learned how important it is to notice everything about your friends because each person is different and special and that is how you show you care about them!

Jewish Values at Camp

Camp 2011 starts in a little over 2 weeks and we are wrapping up the plans!
We are using Midot, Jewish Values as our session themes.
The Midot we will focus on are: Dibuk Chaverim, Cleaving to Friends
Shalom Bayit, Peace in the home
Hachnasat Orchim: Hospitality, welcoming guests
Tikun Olam, Making our world a better place
Bal Tashchit: Do not destroy
Tza'ar Ba'alei Kindness to Animals
Some of the special activities we will be doing are: Friendship Circle and pretend camp fire with our music teacher singing with us.
Raising lady bugs and then releasing them
We have an organic garden we will be gardening in
We are having a donuts for dad breakfast before Shabbat singing one morning
And so many other activities that are not directly related to the midot but are a lot of fun because camp is all about fun. Needless to say the kids are learning in almost every activity they participate it!

Today at our staff meeting 2 pairs of teachers presented their classroom experiences with lessons on Jewish Values.
The first to present was the pair of teachers who have the young three year olds. They have been talking to the children about Bikur Cholim (Visiting the sick) and they told the kids about a teacher who had fractured a bone in her foot and is in a wheel chair. They talked about what you can say to someone who has hurt themself or is sick and then they brought this teacher flowers and told her to feel better quickly and other beautiful phrases they have learned. It was an amazing experience to watch these little ones really care about a teacher that they don't know.
The older three year olds, most are 4 or turning four soon were talking about Sayver Panim Yafot, having a cheerful attitude. They made clown feet to walk in the ways of God and they made fun silly ties to be happy and funny and they made great hats and inside the hat was the following: Let you clown feet carry you quickly to greet others
Have a good heart and always be kind
Wear a smile on your face and keep a silly red nose on so you can make others laugh
Put your hat on your head and make sure you use your heard (your brains) to be wise and to study Torah.
(Shhhh!-Keep these secrets under your hat!)
Clearly the kids cannot read this but the parents can and it reinforces what the kids have learned while teaching the parents the values we are teaching their kids. This little poem was written by Susie Blackman, the teacher in this class.

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.

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.

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.

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:

• 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.

This was a very interesting and insightful exercise!

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!