Heading into High Holy Days

Hello everyone,

We are off to a rollicking start and we couldn't be more excited about our class filled with your sweet-always-ready-to-go children!  

Thank you for coming to our Back to School Night on Thursday (no worries for those that missed) -- key take away points (feel free to add to this) were:
  1)  Remember to Clock In upon arrival then  Clock Out and Sign when taking your precious one away
  2)  Sign up for yummy snacks (fresh fruits are favorites!)
  3) Cindy (Levi's Mom) and Reena (Neeva's Mom) have volunteered to be our Room Mom's!  YEA!
  4) Jennifer N (Eden's Mom) is in charge of Tot Shabbat's - Let her know if you'd like to sponsor a month (means bringing cookies that evening ...)
  5)  Always let us know of any concerns or news or anything as we are a team of Parents and 2 Teachers all striving for the best year for our Toddlers!

I'm sure there were other important announcements and I will share them (if/whenI remember them myself).  This is a two-way street, so feel free to share your thoughts as well -- either with a "Reply All" or with an individual note (email or written) back to us.

Yesterday, we celebrated our second Shabbat together as a class.  The children enjoyed having the lit Shabbat candles on the table as they ate challah and fruit for our snack (Thank you to Ethan & Reese).  We are monitoring the children and the two flames carefully, I promise - but that is our purpose and goal - to expose the kids to many things and to learn much.  Respect for a burning candle is just one lesson of many to come (but it is the only risky one involving fire, I promise!)

We also "cooked" our own PlayDoh in class -- many of the children were quite involved (pouring, stirring -or waiting to stir- and such) while others came in time to stir.  Be sure to ask them what color we made our playdoh (hint: the color of our Becker shirts).  We played outside (so hot! but we had a pitcher of water to serve drinks while outside) and played inside too.  We read Owl Babies (with baby owl puppets!) and later we read Knuffle Bunny.  It was another full and fun day!

Next week will be our first full week together, meeting all 3 days.  We will be learning about the Jewish High Holy Days, beginning with the first one, Rosh Hashanah.   We are asking the children to bring one or two apples on Monday as we will be exploring Apples in both Science and Art activities.  I am attaching our PEEK so you can have a hint of our other plans for our class.

By the way, does anyone happen to have a shofar or know how to blow one?  We'd love to have you visit our class and demonstrate the classic sounds of the shofar  -- or send your shofar and I will do my best to make it sing.  
Note: A shofar is made from a ram's horn.  Shofars are blown in synagogues around the world on Rosh Hashanah morning (and at other times, too).

Would you believe that I try to make these emails short?  brief?  but I start writing and keep thinking of more to say .... We are moving ahead with our class blog plans -- stay tuned for more info .....

Meanwhile, hug your children for us and enjoy this lovely week-end (coolest weather we've had in awhile!!!)

truly,  Cathy & Elena