The first snow of the year!

The children were so excited to get out into the snow today.  It took a lot of doing to get into all of our snow gear, but it was worth it!

Chag Ha’Aviv

Passover has multiple names.  Two we think about a lot - Pesach (referring to the sacrifice of that name) and Chag HaMatzot (feast of matzah.)  We tend to think less about another name for Passover – Chag Ha’Aviv – feast of Spring.  (even less so with a snowy first seder this year!)
As much as it might not have seemed like spring on the first night of Passover, when I walked into the ECC this morning and looked at our growing racks, it certainly looked a lot like spring!  Our seedlings are growing quickly – soon they will outgrow their trays. 
So, if you are wondering where spring is, stop by the growing racks at dropoff or pickup and check out the growth – it will certainly help you get in the mood to be celebrated Chag Ha’Aviv!

Passover brownies

The Kangaroos made these brownies for the seder.  They come from Ruth Heiges on cyber-kitchen.com
Pass-(them-)-Over Brownies (Dairy)

• 1 cup sugar
  
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
  
• 1/2 cup cocoa
  
• 2 Tablespoons boiling water
  
• 2 eggs, well beaten
  
• 1 cup nuts, chopped
  
• 1/4 cup matza meal
  
• 1/4 cup potato starch

Cream sugar and butter.
Make a paste by adding boiling water to cocoa; set aside to cool.
Add cocoa mixture to butter and sugar, then add eggs and remaining ingredients.
Bake at 175 C/350 F fo 30 to 40 minutes and cool before slicing.

Lemon Bars

A number of attendees at today’s Passover program asked for the recipe for the Zebra room’s Pesadik lemon bars.
This recipe is from Our Customers' Favorites, by Paula Levine Weinstein and Julie Komerofsky Remer.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Total Time: 70 minutes

Ingredients:

CRUST:

• 3 sticks margarine, room temperature
  
• 3/4 c. Passover powdered sugar
  
• 1/2 tsp. salt
  
• 2 c. cake meal
  
• 1 c. potato starch

FILLING:

• 8 eggs
  
• 4 c. granulated sugar
  
• 1/2 c. potato starch
  
• 3/4 c. lemon juice

Preparation:
1. Combine crust ingredients. Press into a sprayed 11x17 inch pan. 2. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. 3. Combine filling ingredients. Pour on crust. 4. Bake another 30 minutes. 5. Sprinkle with more Passover powdered sugar. NOTE: For these Lemon Bars to be pareve and kosher for Passover, all ingredients must be pareve and kosher for Passover.

Lyrics

A number of parents were interested in the lyrics to the songs we sang at today’s Passover program. 

You can find these songs and many more on my list of favorite Passover music on Amazon  and at totshabbat.com.

Here are the lyrics:

Oh Listen - Unknown

Oh listen, oh listen, oh listen King Pharaoh.

Oh listen, oh listen, please let my people go.

They want to go away. They work too hard all day.

King Pharaoh, King Pharaoh, what do you say?

No, no, no I will not let them go.

One Morning AKA The Frog Song - Unknown

One morning when Pharoah woke in his bed, there were frogs in his bed, and frogs on his head, frogs on his nose, and frogs on his toes, frogs here, frogs there, frogs were jumping everywhere.

Ten Plagues in Egypt Land – Peter and Ellen Allard

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 plagues in Egypt Land!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 plagues in Egypt Land!

Blood in the water made the river run red: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Pharaoh shoulda listened to what God said: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Frogs were jumping in Pharaoh’s bed: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Pharaoh didn’t like it but the frogs didn’t care: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Creepy, crawly, itchy lice: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Mess with the Holy One, better think twice: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Wild beasts so dirty and vile: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Not exactly Pharaoh’s style: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

The cattle and the horses and the oxen died: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

I won’t give up old Pharaoh cried: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Boils and blisters on his skin: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Give it up Pharaoh, you’re never gonna win: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

The hail rained down from the heavens on high: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Hurt so much made Pharaoh cry: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Swarms of locusts ate the crops: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Hard-hearted Pharaoh just wouldn’t stop: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Dark descended in the light of the day: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Pharaoh was lost, couldn’t find his way: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

First-born, the final blow: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Finally Pharaoh let the people go: 10 Plagues in Egypt land!

Gemini

We had a great treat today – Gemini came to visit!  San and Laz Slomovitz are Gemini, an Ann Arbor musical institution.  We listen to a lot of their music in the classrooms, and the children really connect with the

Gemini sings “Hello”

songs.  Gemini songs are about people we love (mom and dad), things we love to eat (pizza, deli), or ways we love to move.  San and Laz also use a variety of instruments, and really get the children involved in the show.

Gemini started their set with “Hello, Hello,” their standard opener, and quickly transitioned to “Shalom Aleichem.”

The “Deli” song followed.  For those who have never heard this song, it is all about Zingerman’s, and is the reason why Zingerman’s sandwich #55 is named “Gemini Rocks the House!”

Their next song, “Sun’s Gonna Shine,” needed some audience participation, so Laz taught everyone hand motions to go with the song.

Next came a growing song, “Seed in the Ground,” followed by “Zum Gali Gali,” a favorite Israeli folk song. 

Gemini often does story songs when they visit us, and this time they did a musical version of the folk story “It Could Always Be Worse.”  However, instead of bringing more animals into the story, they brought more instruments – in this case spoons – into the story.  Laz and San taught the children how to play the spoons, and passed many pairs out to raise the noise level as things got worse in the story.

A “do as I do” song came next: “Hey, Hey Look at Me” had the children jumping, raising their arms, turning, knocking knees, and much more.  Then came a call and response song based on the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. 

Next San brought out his limberjack, always a favorite.  The children found it particularly funny when the limberjack danced on its head, and did the splits.  More laughs followed during “Down By the Bay.”

The twins closed with Old McDonald, and spirited version of “Haveinu Shalom Aleichem.”  It is always fun to have Gemini come and visit us, and today was no exception. 

You can follow Gemini at www.geminichildrensmusic.com! 

New growth!

I stopped by the growing racks today, and was thrilled to see some green under the lights.  The seedlings started by the Zebras and the Giraffes is really coming along.

The Zebras planted Cosmos, which you can see coming up nicely to the right.  We’ll follow it to see how it blooms!
The Giraffes planted some veggies that are also sprouting:
Cherry Tomatoes

Zucchini

Broccoli

More planting….

Everyone is getting into the mood to plant.  Earlier this week, Giraffe room teacher Michelle Paris brought materials for starting seedlings to Small Group Time.  Everyone had spoons to use for shovels, and each child had one cell of a planting tray to fill with soil, add seeds, and water!  Then the children took the trays down the hall to the growing racks.  We expect to see some shoots soon!

Planting Season has begun!

It is warming up, so it is time to start planting our seedlings.  We also know it is time to plant because Passover is coming soon; one of the names for Passover is Hag HaAviv – holiday of the spring.
This week we stopped by Downtown Home and Garden and picked up soil for our seedlings, and our first seeds of the year arrived in the mail!
Today we cleared off the space under one of our growing lights, and the Zebras did some planting during group time.  They each had the opportunity to fill a container, plant the seeds, and give them their first water. 

We’ll be watching these seeds carefully, and waiting for them to germinate.  Over the next few weeks, these seedlings will be joined by many many more trays, and stopping by the growing racks to check on the seeds will become a daily activity for the children.

A Morning at Preschool

It is 8:45AM on a Tuesday morning in early January, and in the JCC Early Childhood Center’s Kangaroo room, two four-year-old boys sit at a table collaborating on a complicated structure, while Natalie Wiesend, one of the teachers, sits and reads with three girls. A few more Kangaroos arrive; soon it will be Greeting Time, when the class will gather to talk about the day. Next door, at 9AM, the Giraffe Room begins their Greeting Time. With the final words of their greeting song – “Shalom, shalom, let’s have fun!” still hanging in the air, the children turn their attention to the whiteboard held by teacher Katy Czarnecki. “Who wants to tell us about today’s messages?” Hands go up as children tell Katy that “it’s Tuesday” and “we’re singing with Wendy today!” Across the hall in the Frog Room, children introduced themselves to a student who was new to the classroom.


As Greeting Time ended, children scattered to large tables for Small Group Time. In the Kangaroo Room, children in Nancy Witter’s group were wielding rolling pins as they flattened slices of bread to make roll-up sandwiches. Outside the Giraffe Room, Michelle Paris’ group was gathered around a large piece of butcher paper. Using toy cars and trays of different colored paint, children worked on mixing colors as they made designs using the car wheels. In the Frog Room, teacher Julie Bass and her small group read a book about dinosaurs as they continued their ongoing exploration of dinosaurs. Across the room Julie’s co-teacher Tonya Backstrom worked with her small group on how to represent clouds using different materials – crayons, white paint, and white paper – as a follow-up to a reading of It Looked Like Spilt Milk.

At snack time in the Kangaroo Room, a discussion broke out about how to eat your oatmeal. One child insisted to his classmates that “You can’t mix your chocolate chips into your oatmeal!” His declaration was met with cries of “yes you can!” and “Look – the chips melt when you mix them in!” The consensus was that you could choose to mix or not mix. As snack time came to a close in the Giraffe Room, it was time for the children to make their plans for Work Time. At Katy’s small group table each child took a turn “calling” Katy on a cell phone so that they could talk about what they wanted to do with their time. Plans in each classroom ranged from building a boat with blocks, to playing hopscotch, to dressing up and pretending to be a veterinarian, to reading with a teacher, to drawing a picture with crayons.

 

As Work Time got into full swing, children’s plans became intertwined, creating richer experiences. A boy who planned to play with animals and the girl who wanted to play veterinarian collaborated as they took care of a “sick” tiger. The hopscotch player recruited other children to her game. The boat builder was joined by others who brought tools to use and ideas of how the boat should look. The girl who planned to draw ended up creating an elaborate Hanukkah card for her parents. (Belated? Extremely early?) Two children who planned to build a train were joined by two more children who helped make the track longer and more elaborate. Teachers participated in these scenarios, taking on roles assigned by the children and following the themes in their play. In each room, one teacher was almost constantly surrounded by children supplying a seemingly endless series of books to read. In another, two children who were getting to know a new manipulative material received support from a teacher who helped them discover how pieces could fit together.


Soon, five-minute warnings that cleanup time was coming were heard. In one room, one of the teachers left the room to run an “errand, providing an opportunity for the ever-popular cleanup game, surprise the teacher. Could the children clean up before the teacher came back? Materials were put away quickly, as every shelf and bin is labeled with pictures and words. After everything was put away, the lights were turned off, and the children hid, silently. “Here she comes!” another teacher whispered. “Where did everyone go?” wondered the returning teacher. The class yelled, “Surprise!”

After cleanup in each classroom, the children returned to their tables to reflect on what they had accomplished during Work Time. At Natalie’s table children added blocks to the “Recall tower” as they recounted their activities, telling Natalie and their classmates about the materials they used, the structures they built, and the people they worked with. Soon, everyone lined up to go to Hootenanny! Other mornings might mean gym class or Israeli dancing, or Torah stories, but on Tuesdays for the twenty years, Wendy Lawrence has been singing with the children of the ECC. Soon all three preschool classrooms were singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain.”

After Hootenanny the children rushed back to their classrooms to put on all of their winter gear so that they could play in the snow. Outside, children slid down snow-covered slides, and rode sleds down the small hill on the playground. Teachers pulled other sleds full of children around the space. Red-cheeked and hungry, the children trooped back inside, stripped off snow pants and boots, and ate lunch. The morning was over.

Welcome to our blog!

We’ll be using this space for many different kinds of posts.  Our gardening exploits will go here.  Sometimes we’ll post interesting stories that just can’t wait for the newsletter.  Other times we might use it to expand on something that we’ve touched on in a newsletter.  Please use the comment function to let us know what kinds of posts you would be interested in reading.

Planting Starts!

As we celebrated Tu B’Shevat, some of the classrooms started a few seeds germinating.  In these pictures, the Lambs prepare earth and water for their Root-Vue.