The Little Shofar June/Tammuz 2010/5770 Jewish Family Congregation Early Childhood Center Newsletter Dear Parents, It is hard to believe that school is almost over. In only a few short days, we will be saying our goodbyes before the summer starts. It may appear that this is the end, but I look at this ending as a new beginning, similar to the metamorphosis completed by our school caterpillars. Our children just learned about how the caterpillars did not end their lives as chrysalises but emerged from their cocoons as butterflies. As the children released their fluttering friends into the world, they watched them begin a new journey. Our children have been preparing for their educational journeys since their first day of school. They learned new concepts, explored new materials and discovered how to be a good friend. Like the caterpillars, the children appeared to make a miraculous change as we saw them exhibit their new skills, improved language and new found independence. Yet unlike the caterpillar, their accomplishments occurred more slowly and took place over time in the nurturing environment of the ECC and with the guidance of their loving teachers. When school started our two year olds could barely separate from their moms and uttered only a few words at a time. Now these same two year olds eagerly leave their mothers to play with their friends at school and are expressing themselves with ease. Our threes have learned to be capable and competent in so many areas from recognizing their names in print to solving problems on their own. Finally, our departing fours are more than ready for their new adventures in Kindergarten. Armed with new skills, confidence and abilities, all of our children are well prepared for a great year ahead. I am not going to miss the children who are leaving our twos and threes for long because I am anxiously looking forward to seeing them again in September with a summer’s inch of growth and their excited smiles. I cannot wait to begin school to spend every holiday with the children and to sing songs together at music. I should be sad about seeing our fours depart but I cannot help from smiling at the thought of how well they will do in Kindergarten and beyond. Just like the butterflies on the first day of flight, I know that our children will soar. However, there are some people I will greatly miss and those are our departing parents. I want to thank all of our parent volunteers and especially our Yellow Room parents who have given their time and effort into making our school a
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June/Tammuz 2010 / 5770 better place for our children over the years that they have been with us. You will see that I have created a separate “thank you� box for our parent volunteers who have given so much of themselves to our school and I have marked with a star those who are moving on. One individual I truly want to thank is Diane Richman because she has so capably taken on the yoke of leadership as our Early Childhood Committee Chair this year. It is her vision that propelled the ECC to the position of excellence that we are enjoying today. Finally, I want to thank our remarkable staff. A special thank you goes to Rabbi Carla Freedman for her constant support and to Jolie Levy, our Office Administrator who keeps the ECC communications going. Most importantly, I would like to thank our wonderful teachers, Alison Brodoff, Debra Cohen, Ellen Elias, Dinah Rader, Laura Vayness and Jodi Waxman for their dedication to teaching your children and for the love that they give to each and every one of them. May I wish you and your children a wonderful summer of growth, learning and many new beginnings.
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June/Tammuz 2010 / 5770 FROM THE RABBI’S DESK With very little warning, summer arrived here…it seemed to be dilly-dallying but I am now convinced that it has arrived, and for me…not a minute too soon. We who work at JFC appreciate the less intense summer months, when we come wearing shorts, and take advantage of the lull in classes to get caught up on all kinds of reading, and paperwork. But the lull will be very short this year, because Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish new year, arrives on the Wednesday evening directly after Labour Day…early, as we like to say. And the High Holy Days are a major event on our calendar, as you can imagine, so we will be working on that immediately! And of course, even though the activity around here slows down noticeably, we will be holding Shabbat services every week; people come dressed in shorts, and we have our usual informal service, with lots of music and good discussions. Because our teens are on vacation…and many are away at summer camp… alas, we do not offer Tot Shabbat over the summer. However, we have 3 services that are wonderful for children…our Shabbat In The Great Outdoors picnics…scheduled this year for June 25, July 25 and August 23. We begin these at 6:30 pm, and each family brings its own picnic…whatever you and your kids would like to eat and drink. You also bring your own blanket to sit on (and/or beach chairs), bug spray and Frisbee or beach ball. We light the candles outdoors, often a challenge in the breeze, and sing the blessings for them, for the wine and the challah…we pass the latter two around for all to share. And then we all eat what we have brought. Some bring sandwiches, some bring sushi, some bring salads or pasta or pizza…or even chicken! When the kids are done eating, they go off to play on the main lawn of the temple. Little kids can go into the playground as long as an adult is there to supervise. At 7:30 pm, we have a musical service, singing our way through “Shabbat’s greatest hits”…and then we come inside, so we don’t have to share the Oneg Shabbat with the mosquitoes! You will find many of your friends from the ECC at these picnic services…so please join us. Your kids, who have been celebrating Shabbat with the blessings all year, will impress you with how much they know. And they are so at home here that they will be delighted to return and see their JFC friends too. This is also a good way to introduce JFC to your friends, neighbours or family who may be looking for a temple to join. We are at our informal best, and it is easy to meet people in this situation, so by all means invite them to join you for one of the picnics. In any case, we hope you have a great summer, and we hope to see you and your family, even though school is out, because we ARE family (“family” is our middle name), and family gettogethers are a traditional part of summer!
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June/Tammuz 2010 / 5770 News from the Green Room Spring has filled the green room and the ECC with a lot of exciting activities. April showers brought us May flowers in our classroom and around the school grounds. The kids loved clipping the forsythia bushes and placing them in our vase for Shabbat (a few dandelions were also snuck in). Another spring highlight was going on a nature walk and exploring the worms and bugs around JFC. The children have also discovered our bike shed and its contents. They have become very good at directing traffic and insisting that their friend’s van needs a fill up of gas. Congratulations are in order on becoming parents of three butterflies, all named “Gabriella.” The kids loved watching the transformation from caterpillars to butterflies and then setting them free from their tent. Keep your eyes open for them flying around South Salem. The holiday of Yom Ha-atzmaut comes in the spring and the children enjoyed celebrating Israel’s birthday with songs, a parade and by decorating graham crackers with spread and blue sprinkles. Luck was a little too much on our side as we had a clear, but very hot day for our trip to Muscoot Farm. We hope you enjoyed meeting the baby animals and the adventurous but bumpy hayride. We are still on the lookout for the pigs and piglets. It’s hard to believe the end of the school year is upon us and how much the children have grown. We loved watching them become independent, social and confident boys and girls. Thank you for the pleasure of sharing them with us. Have a Happy and Safe Summer!!! B’Shalom Dinah and Jodi
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A DAY AT THE BEACH… ….AND FUN ON THE PLAYGROUND
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June/Tammuz 2010 / 5770 News from the Blue Room Days of Miracles and a Year of Joy In the realm of education, there is an edict that learning is best served by doing. The Blue Room curriculum has certainly abided by this principle in the past several months. Did you know that we went on a trip to Israel? In fact we did it in one day! We had to prepare for our trip by making passports and flags. We were so excited to get on the plane with pilot Fern for our eleven hour flight. Teachers were transformed into flight attendants, complete with snacks. Upon arrival in Tel Aviv, we sang and proceeded with a bevy of hands on activities, including putting notes into a replica of the Kotel and then going on an archeological dig in the playground sandbox for ancient Israeli artifacts. We culminated this busy day with a visit to an outdoor Israeli café complete with pita bread and hummus. We then returned on our El Al flight right back to the Blue Room. A good time was had by all. Butterflies abound in the new season and the Blue room had the opportunity to raise four beautiful caterpillars. We watched as they transformed into cocoons, and one special day right before our very eyes at snack time, a butterfly was born!!!! This was one of our most exciting moments ever. We made nectar for him, and then the children had the opportunity through a movement exercise to be caterpillars, roll up into cocoons and then become beautiful butterflies. The next activity for our new born Blue room butterflies was to fly from flower to flower to drink nectar. To that end the children were supplied with straws to replicate a butterfly’s tongue, which in fact acts as a straw. They then were able to sample through their straws, a taste of nectar. (4 parts water to 1 part sugar) Being a butterfly was a wonderful experience and the children LOVED it. This past week, we all became farmers. We talked about what a farm is, different types of farms and what a farmer does. We studied different animals. For our study of cows we actually got to milk the cows. (Really a rubber glove filled with water, but shhhh…don’t tell anyone.) Then we made butter from cow’s cream. What a yummy snack that was on a bagel. In our unit on sheep, we showed the children how the sheep are shorn, and how their coat is turned into wool for the sweaters that they wear. On our science table we placed the “coat of the sheep” and we invited the Blue Room to come and make their own yarn. This unit was further enhanced by our wonderful trip to Muscoot Farm. It is a great learning experience to follow up on what we learn in the classroom with a trip to the “real thing” How wonderful to see our studies in action. As you can tell by reading, we have had an absolutely marvelous year with your children. Every day was special, filled with learning, and of course lots of fun and laughter. Wishing all of you a fabulous summer season. We look forward to seeing everyone in the Yellow Room next year. Love, Ellen and Laura Page 6
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...Planting… ...Painting… ...Playing...
BYE BYE BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY
MUSCOOT FARM
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June/Tammuz 2010 / 5770 News from The Yellow Room It is hard to believe that the end of the year is here. Like the butterflies developing in our classroom your children are ready to leave and go on to a new adventure. It was a wonderful experience for the Yellow Room children to study butterflies and watch them grow from caterpillars. Every day we would see the different changes that were occurring. We drew pictures of both caterpillars and butterflies, read books about them and made up our own class story about butterflies. Together we acted out the cycle from caterpillar to butterfly. The plants that we started from seed grew tall and are now planted in our outside garden. Thank you Lee and Charlie for all of your help. Please come visit the playground garden and see how well they are doing. We had two trips this spring. In April we visited the Maritime Aquarium and in May we went to Muscoot Farm. The children studied the subjects in detail to prepare them for each of these trips. Before we went to the aquarium we learned about penguins, fish and other animals that we would see there. Alison brought in two goldfish for our class and we studied about how goldfish live and what they need to survive. We read stories about going to the aquarium and drew wonderful pictures. In preparation for our trip to the farm we learned the names of all the baby animals that we might see. We also found words that rhymed with the different farm animals: Goat/ boat, Pig/wig etc. Most importantly, we discussed what you do on a farm and what you get from farm animals. To celebrate Israel’s birthday we took a trip to Israel and we made passports and flags to bring with us on our adventure. The children all made a wish to put into the Wailing Wall when we arrived. We ate Israeli food, danced Israeli dances and went on an archeological dig. At the end of our trip we were all exhausted but it was a fun day. This past year has been a time of growth for your children. They learned so much and it has been a joy to have them in our classroom. We hope you were all here for our June 9th moving up ceremony. Debra and Alison Page 8
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First-Year Dues For Young Families Lowered by 50% Thinking of joining JFC? If your oldest child is in Kindergarten in 2010/11 or younger, first-year JFC dues are now only half the annual dues amount! And, if your children are (or will be) enrolled in the Jewish Family Congregation Early Childhood Center, your JFC membership entitles you to a
JFC Congregant Discount on tuition!
For more information or to join JFC, call (914) 763-3028 Or visit us on-line at: www.jewishfamilycongregation.org You’ll feel at home when you’re part of our family… Jewish Family Congregation
Many Thanks to: Early Childhood Committee Chair... Diane Richman Early Childhood Committee ……….
Karen Blum, Rachel Clott, Lee Goldstein, Linda Lederman, David Marceau, Gillian Margolin, Meredith Rudin and Elise Serby
Book Club Chair …………………...………
Iris Glass
Class Parents ……………………..……..…
Hallie Benson, Rachel Clott, Susan Greenberg, Sara Manes, Meredith Rudin and Dina Zusel
Lunch Bunch Coordinators ……….
Hallie Benson, Linda Lederman and Sherry Wallach
Cooking Class…………………………….…
Nicole Rose
CONGRATULATIONS! The ECC has collected Tzedakah money all year and has made a contribution of $173.00 to the Community Center of Northern Westchester. All the pennies given by the children really did add up and will greatly help our local neighbors in need. Thank you for all you do!
Mark your calendars 15 minute visits for all children are Monday, Sept. 13 Parent Orientation is also Monday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m. 3’s and 4’s first day is Tuesday, Sept. 14 2’s first day is Wednesday, Sept. 15