Preschool Opens Doors!
by Liz Kaufman

September sixth marked a very special day as the preschool opened its doors to eighteen young, excited, a little nervous, and a few crying children. Parparim and Tziporim are now fluttering around the preschool classrooms exploring, experimenting and discovering through touching, manipulating, throwing, lifting, weighing, pushing and balancing. Just in case you were wondering, parparim are butterflies and tziporim are birds! Our two year olds comprise our parparim, class while our older children are the tziporim class. Our classrooms are an extension of home – a warm, inviting, loving, safe environment. As you can see from the pictures, the children are truly feeling at home!

Our children live in a world of discovery. They see, hear, smell, taste and feel. Their sensory awareness, cognitive growth and language development is flourishing within the Jewish framework of the school. Learning through direct and concrete experiences – by manipulating and sensing the environment, everyday events are turned into learning experiences.

Decorating a kippah, painting a kiddush cup, reciting the HaMotzi, Shema, Shehecheyanu, celebrating Shabbat, hanging our mezuzah, dancing to Israeli music, singing Jewish songs, hearing the words Boker tov, yeladim, shalom, morah, todah, rosh, dipping apples in honey and blowing the shofar…these experiences help our children to feel, to understand, to live, and to love Judaism.

We are off to a marvelous start. The children are so creative and enthusiastic about everything. They have all had a wonderful first month of school and we have only just begun! This month we will continue to learn about and observe the Fall holidays. We will bake round challah and honey cake, taste a variety of apples, and learn how to blow a shofar as we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Next, we will learn about Jonah and the Whale, talk about G-d, and throw away our bad things on our tashlich walk to help us to understand Yom Kippur. We will finish up the fall holidays by helping to decorate a sukkah, shaking our lulav and etrog, and marching in a Simhat Torah parade.

According to tradition, all Jews, past, present and future, old and young alike, participate in “matan Torah” – the receiving of our heritage. There is no better time to begin this process than now, at the earliest age in a child’s life. We are very fortunate to have this preschool for our young children. If you hear the sound of happy little voices off in the distance, stop by and visit us. All of us serve as models for the children and we welcome you.

October 2005