Let's make something for Rosie's Place

On Friday, the Kindergartners were excited to explore the flour in the sensory table. As they started to feel the flour they shared their observations with each other.

Dylan: It’s so soft.

Brett E.: But dirty.

Zack: Not dirty, but messy.

They continued feeling the flour and experimented with the mixing spoons, measuring cups, and sifters. As they were playing, Brett S. developed a dramatic play scenario. He said, “We’re making this for Rosie’s place. For people who don’t have food.”  Zack, Dylan, and Brett continued preparing food for Rosie’s Place and asked that the teacher pretend to be the person from Rosie’s Place that comes to pick up the food.

Jesse: Hi. I am from Rosie’s Place. I heard you have something for me to pick up.

Brett Stone: We made eggs!
Dylan: Scrambled.

Zack: And here’s extra.

Brett Stone: We also have little sandwiches.

Rosie’s Place is a soup kitchen for homeless women. The Children’s Center at Temple Beth Shalom prepares Tuna casseroles for Rosie’s place once a month. This is an experience that Dylan, Zack, and Brett had when they attended the children’s center. When children engage in dramatic play, they demonstrate their understanding of the world around them. In this scenario, the children are revealing their experience with Rosie’s Place, their understanding of people who do not have as much food as we do, and the idea of tzedakah.  Together, we will continue exploring the idea of tzedakah and think about how we can help Rosie’s Place. 

Using our sense of taste

We continued our exploration of the five senses today, by using our sense of taste! We tasted four different foods: lemons, unsweetened chocolate, pretzels, and honey. We discovered that lemons taste sour, unsweetened chocolate tastes bitter, pretzels taste salty, and honey tastes sweet. The children recorded whether they liked or did not like the different tastes. You might want to try and find some foods at home that taste sweet, salty, bitter, or sour! 

Making and Playing with Playdough

During Tuesday Lunch Bunch, the children in Kohavim worked together to follow a recipe to make playdough. They took turns adding ingredients and stirring. The children decided that because they were 5 years old, they would each mix five times. After the playdough cook, we took out the dough, let it cool, and then kneaded the dough. Together we followed the recipe below: 

Playdough Recipe 

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup of salt 

1 cup flour

2 tablespoons cream of tartar 

1 cup water

1 tablespoon oil

Food coloring (optional) 

1. Mix all ingredients together in a medium sized sauce pan

2. Stir over heat until dough is pliable.

3. Allow to cool. 

4. Play with or store in a sealed container or plastic bag. 

The next day, the children in Kohavim used rolling pins and cookie cutters with the freshly made playdough. It was challenging to using the rolling pins, because the children had to press down and roll the rolling pin at the same time to flatten their playdough. They then used the cookie cutters to cut out different shapes. The children noticed a pumpkin cookie cutter and discussed how Dunkin Donuts sells so many pumpkin flavored foods, such as pumpkin donuts and pumpkin munchkins. Yum! You might want to try making playdough at home with your child. 

What is inside the pumpkin?

After predicting there might be seeds inside the pumpkin, we quickly cut the top of the pumpkin to find out what was inside. Julian and Talia were eager to get their hands inside and discovered there were seeds and also squishy pulp. They asked if we could eat the seeds, so we decided to roast the pumpkin seeds. Julian and Talia worked together to separate the seeds from the pulp. They washed the seeds and then mixed the seeds with a teeny bit of oil and a sprinkle of salt. After 20 minutes in the oven, we enjoyed a delicious snack of pumpkin seeds! Roasting pumpkin seeds allowed us to follow a recipe and engage in a sensory experience. 

Apple Cider Taste Test

We have been so busy in our pretend Dunkin Donuts in Kohavim! This week, we decided to taste one of the products we are selling- Apple Cider! The children sipped the apple cider and determined if they liked it, did not like it, or liked a little bit. They then wrote their name on a post-it note and charted their preference. Taste tests encourage us to try new things, provide the opportunity for a sensory experience, and enabled us to compare and contrast the children's preferences. There are more taste tests inspired by our Dunkin Donuts menu to come!

Apple Tasting

The children had the opportunity to taste three types of apples, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, and Golden Delicious and then selected their favorite.  The results were recorded on a graph.

The children placed the appropriate sticker (red, green or yellow) onto the graph and a teacher  helped them write their name!  Even Lily's dog selected her favorite apple!  The best part was trying all the apples!  Yummy!!

Tomorrow at our morning meeting we will figure out ...Which is the most popular kind of apple?

A very special thanks  goes out to Charlotte Rosenberg for making the Apple Tasting Graph!

Challah on Shabbat!

The Adamah children truly  enjoy making challah!   On Shabbat Sammantha, Hayley, Graham and Sally enter the room, help themselves to challah dough and a bit of flour.  When it's time to put the challah in the oven guess who is still at the table kneading, rolling and playing with the challah dough?  That's right...Samantha, Hayley, Graham, and Sally!  

What's in the water table?

Just last week there was water in the water table, but today when we came in there was something else--RICE!  The children realized they could play with the rice the same way they play in water--using measuring cups, plastic cups, little tug boats and could even get the water wheel going by pouring rice into it.  A little different, but equally fun.

Applesauce

The children enjoyed peeling and cutting apples as they made applesauce. They sliced and diced the apples, added a few raisins ,a bit of cinnamon and ta-da...delicious applesauce!

Moon Sand

On Monday, we filled our sensory table with moon sand! Moon sand is a mixture of equal parts of corn starch and shaving cream. It creates a material that you can mold, pack, and sculpt and then crumble. The texture of the moon sand and the fragrance of the shaving cream stimulated multiple senses! Ask your child about playing with the moon sand.

Frozen Paint!

What a cool treat it was to paint with frozen red, white, and blue paints! The children helped to fill cups with red, white, and blue paint. We then put a craft stick in the paint and placed the cups into the freezer. On Wednesday, we took out the chilling paints and created masterpieces! You might want to try painting with frozen paints at home some time!

Painting with our Feet!

Last Wednesday, we kicked off Red, White, and Blue day by painting with our feet! The children dipped their toes into red, white, and blue paint. The paint felt cool and squishy!  The children then left foot prints all over a large banner paper. It was such a fun, sensory experience and filled with red, white, and blue spirit!

Mud Day!

It was Mud Day at TBSCC! Alex played with the muddy water, stamped his feet in the muddy puddles, rode in the muddy car, and poured mud on his head! What a day for Alex! Hooray for Mud Day!

Cody joined the Kahol group today! He seemed to have a great first day! Welcome Cody!

Our First Shabbat Together!

We made our own challah! Kneading and rolling the dough was one the best parts of the day!
Hannah said, "The dough is sticky and gooey "! Kayla said, "This is roll- poly!" Grace said, "This is sticky and cold.". After lunch the girls decorated a brown paper bag to place their challah in!

We said the blessings and enjoyed a little challah and juice with Jesse, Maria and Laura's class, and at the end of the day we went to the the Sanctuary to sing with Emily and the entire TBSCC!
It was so much fun celebrating Shabbat together!

Food Challenge

We had a food challenge in Adom on Thursday:  What can you build with 10 green grapes and 10 blueberries? Inspired by the delicious fresh fruit and the toothpicks, the children took on the building challenge. Before they could build, they had to count out their fruit. Using one to one correspondence, the children counted out 10 grapes and 10 blueberries. As they built, the children nibbled on the blueberries and grapes. Playing with the fruit provided a sensory experience and encouraged the children to try new foods. After the constructed, the children gobbled up the fruit! What a delicious building activity!

Bagel Pizza!

All you have to do is place a wheat bagel on a plate, spoon on some red sauce, sprinkle on mozzarella cheese and place the pizza in the oven!

The best part was tasting all the ingredients as we prepared the pizza bagel! In fact Kayla ate her pizza bagel before it went in the oven...Now that's what we call delicious pizza!

Frosty Paints!

Yesterday, at the art table we explored color mixing and shaving cream! The children used droppers and red, blue, and yellow watercolor to mix colors in the shaving cream. After lots of experimentation, we decided to mix some food coloring, shaving cream, and glitter in cups to create frosty paints! After mixing our paints, we placed them in the freezer for the night. This morning, we were so excited to take our frosty paints out of the freezer and finger paint with them! Below are the photos of children finger painting with the frosty paints and find time to stop by and see their creations in person! 

Fun with Foam (Shaving Cream)

Today in the Adom classroom, the campers got to play with shaving cream.  There were eyedroppers and watercolors to drop into the shaving cream and make colored shaving cream.

 Zach had fun mixing colors!

 Ben and Zach love the feeling of the shaving cream.

We had a great time squishing and playing with the foam; it is such a smooth and unique feeling that we managed to make a HUGE mess.

 Ben M likes the blue foam the best!

 

We also squirted shaving cream into cups and then put glitter and food coloring in the cups.  

We mixed it all up and put the cups in the freezer to stay overnight.

We shall see what frozen shaving cream looks and feels like when we take it out tomorrow!