The Yearly Week Of Ear Infections

Mommy is almost 100% sure that this is possibly the third time that this has happened.

This week, Clara had a double ear infection, Emma had one ear infection and yes, Mommy got one last nite (even though on antibiotics). Yep, it is that no good, very bad, awful ear infection week.

Boo.

Good news- Clara visited the ENT and her tubes are intact still. Interestingly, the adenoids may have grown back a bit and need to be monitored.

Here's hoping to a healthier week!

Nursery School Update

This Week in the Fours Feb 17, 2012:

Music with Marcy on Monday. We also celebrated Hayden's birthday in school with a special birthday treat and a visit from Hayden's mommy. Happy Birthday Hayden!

A visit from Greenburgh Nature Center brought us a lizard, a corn snake and a ferret. The lizard's name is Azure because he has a blue tongue. The corn snake can't hear but feels vibrations and the ferret sleeps for 18 hours at a time! The fours listened carefully and were very gentle when touching the animals.

The Fours are flying off into space! In anticipation of our visit to the planetarium on March 6, the fours made a list of what they know about the sun, the moon and the stars. It was interesting and fun to see how much the fours know and we look forward to learning more when we visit the Hudson River Museum in March. We will also be doing a workshop on the effects of light in art and creating our own artwork. Watch your cubbies right after vacation for permission slips and more details.

We have been spending the week working on our letters and numbers
through the use of manipulatives. We used play dough to make letters
and played number games showing one to one number correspondence.
Each day when the children go to the snack table, they are given a letter
or number that they match to the same letter or number at the table and
then tell their friends at the table what card they have matched.

Thank you to Sue Malat and Arin Gornstein for working so hard at making Pizza and Play a success, so that we could have new learning toys that we ordinarily would not have had. We appreciate it, and love the new toys that you so generously donated to the school.!

We hope everyone has a fun and safe vacation.
Shabbat Shalom,
Joyce and Tara

Happy Valentine's Day

The ladies both had fevers last night and therefore, stayed home from school. In the middle of the night, Clara developed a second ear infection (as a follow up to Friday's ear infection)- even though she is on antibiotics already! And, Emma had a cough but by mid day started saying her ear hurt and Mommy took her straight to the doctor and yep, she has an ear infection too.

The kids watched some movies, including their new favorite- Parent Trap (no not the original, but the one from the 90s with Lindsey Lohan).
To end the day, Mommy went to the doctor and also was given antibiotics!
The gang enjoyed the heart strawberry pink cholocalte chip cake Mommy made with Clara earlier today and frosted with strawberry pink frosting and chocolate chips.

So, here's to a healthy tomorrow filled with lots of love and smiles.

Bribing The Kids For School Pictures

Mommy started on Friday. Pictures were scheduled for Monday. And, Mommy was determined that Clara would be in the class photo. See, in the 2s Clara was scared- Emma was sick but came for picture day. In the 3s, Clara had her tubes put in. And this year, for the 4s, she was going. No matter what. Of course, she was sick on Friday and much of the weekend, but bounced back.

Step 1: Mommy knew what she wanted the kids to wear and explained that this is what they'd wear for the pictures. Okay- they agreed. Phew. Clara whined a bit because she wanted a blue dress, but she went for the purple dress and Emma wore the pink dress- similar design, different style- of course.

Step 2: Tights. Mommy told them they could choose their tights.  That went over pretty well and they were happy to pick out tights that didn't match so well, but were certainly cute.

Step 3: Shoes. Mommy would have liked boots with the outfits, but didn't want to push it- so they got to pick shoes.

Step 4: Biggest Battle. See, Clara is completely obsessed with her "rainbow clip hair." She does it herself. She stands in front of the mirror for at least ten minutes, uses a big clip that belongs to Mommy and pulls her hair back and then puts in at least ten little rainbow butterfly clips around the front. Yeh, not for picture day.

Mommy bathed the kids in the morning. And they got dressed. Then the battle...

Mommy vs the Gornstein Twins

Winner? Everyone. Clara wore one blue clip (she refused the purple clip that matched her dress) and Emma wore a pink barrette. After pictures, Clara couldn't wait to do her hair and enjoyed taking the bag of clips that Mommy left with her teachers to do her hair.

Mommy was told that they both looked cute in the pics - can't wait to see them!

Nursery School Update

This Week in the Fours Feb. 10, 2012:

Music with Marcy and Cantor Janet . We sang Happy Birthday to the trees
and sang all our songs about the trees for Tu B'Shevat

.
Since we learned that paper comes from trees, we made collages from
newspaper. The children ripped strips of newspaper and then glued them any way they wanted. The collages are a wonderful display of creative process art. By doing collages, the artists gets to use their imagination in any way
they desire. The collages are displayed in our class room.

Trees also give us fruit. To celebrate Tu B'Shevat, everyone brought in a
fruit to share with the class. We made a graph showing the different
fruits that the children brought. The graph showed there were more
apples than any other fruit. Graphing helps to promote basic math
concepts, vocabulary and mathematical thinking. Talking about trees
led us to describing how the trees look different in the different
seasons. We wanted to see who liked what season best, so we made a graph of
the different seasons. Most children liked summer best. They said summer was their favorite because they can swim, their birthday is in the summer,
the sun is shining and you get to play outdoors and swim to keep cool.

Fall was the favorite of one four who likes to jump in the fall
leaves. Winter for some is a favorite because you can go skiing and build snow
men, and Spring because flowers are growing and you can plant flowers
in the spring.

On Wednesday, we did had a big celebration with Jackie and the Rabbi. We talked about why we celebrate Tu B'Shevat at this time of year and how in Israel it's starting to get warmer and the almond trees are in bloom. We did a big lesson about growing things, and discussed how every seed is unique to it's own species, so an orange seed will always grow an orange and never a mango or papaya. We examined all kinds of fruits and tried to guess if there was one seed or a lot of seeds inside. We also talked about which seeds you can eat and which you can't.

In conjunction with Tu B'Shevat, on Thursday we made bird feeders for the birds that are brave and stayed here for the winter. The children covered pinecones with Crisco andthen rolled them in birdseed. You can use the string on the pinecone to tie it someplace where the birds will enjoy a tasty snack. We also decorated styrofoam cups with silly faces and planted grass seed inside, so it would look like hair! Make sure you give it water, sun and a haircut now and then!

We acted out The Carrot Seed by Kraus, a real classic. The class loved
acting it out and wanted to do it again and again.

From the science table, we compared different bark and talked about
how bark can be different on different types of trees.We talked about taking care of trees and at the end of our discussion, one four suggested we all hug a tree!

On Friday we made another book by the fours. This one is all about
Trees!

Shabbat was celebrated with Leo's mom.

Shabbat Shalom to everyone,
Joyce and Tara

Club Lunch Fun

We made patterned necklaces using fancy beads and necklaces, which provide a much greater fine motor challenge than pipe cleaners!

The kids did an amazing job sticking with it and not getting frustrated as they learned the best way to do the threading.

 

 

 

 

The Kindgergarten Papers

Most other school districts had started kindergarten registration. Mommy heard it wasn't for a few months, so wasn't too concerned.

Mommy knew what the big envelope was when it arrived today. For a brief second, Mommy was sad that it was already time to sign Clara and Emma up for kindergarten. And then, Mommy realized that it was pretty exciting!

However, if anyone would like to fill out the paperwork (times 2) please be in touch!

Nursery School Update

This Week in the Fours Feb. 3, 2012

Monday's music with Marcy was all about TuBsvat We played the wood
instruments and pretended to be trees growing in the sun.
The fours made a list all about trees.

Trees give us food, like apples, pears, peaches, and mangoes.

We start with seeds

The rain and the sun make trees grow

Squirrels live in trees

Trees have roots, trunks,leaves and branches

Coconuts come from trees

Birds live in trees

They grow from the ground

Wood and paper come from trees

A forest has many trees

We read The Giving Tree and all agreed that the tree was a very special one.

The fours water-colored trees to celebrate the birthday of the trees. They are in the hall for all to see. They are all very different and special. The children said their trees were a sun tree, an appletree, a maple pear tree, a bending tree and a blossom tree. Have fun picking out which is which!

We have been singing many songs for Tu B'Shvat.The fours acted out some
Tu B'Shvat poems about trees. The children really enjoy performing for
their friends and we all take turns at being the audience.

One of the songs included the word "sow" and we discussed how words can sound the same but have different meanings, like for and four. We will continue to explore homonyms as we go along.

When going outside the fours are making observations about the winter
trees.

The fours drew faces on white styrofoam cups. Then we planted grass seed
for the hair. We will leave them in the sun and see if indeed our cups
will sprout green hair!

We celebrated Shabbat with Justin's mommy.

Shabbat Shalom!

Joyce and Tara

Clara and Emma's Half Birthday

Four and a half.

Funny, when Mommy told the ladies that today was their half birthday- they started screaming "no, it isn't August. It isn't summer.It is not our birthday." Obviously, Mommy continued to stress "half" but they really didn't get it.
It has been an incredibly eventful month for Clara. At the start of the month, she began wearing glasses. On the 24th of January, she lost her first tooth. Both these events make her look older - still very cute of course.  And, days later, she swam- like freestyle stroke. She also was approved for Occupational Therapy 2 X 45 and started mid- month. This is to help with her hand weakness that lends to her handwriting curving like a circle and some mild motor planning challenges.

Clara is obsessed with her hair dos. She spends at least ten minutes in front of the mirror everyday putting multiple clips in her hair, headbands and even Mommy's large hair clip. She is known around as Punky Brewster or Rainbow Brite.

She absolutely loves ballet know and swimming class. She also likes to do interpretive dance and listen to music. And, for the past several weeks, has enjoyed the movie Annie, seeing the show and know, playing out the scenes with her friends (and sister).

Emma loves movies and performing scenes from them. Annie is her latest favorite, but Barbie Princess Charm School is a close second. She delights in dancing at ballet and really enjoys swimming and doesn't protest sticking her head under water.