Why Do Children in Preschools Make New Year’s Cards?

Idie Benjamin and Dale Cooperman

Did you ever stop to think….?

As early childhood educators, we know what young children need developmentally. We know that play is the “work” of young children and that experience is the best, and sometimes the only teacher. We know about designing environments: affective, child-centered, hands-on, experiential, learning by doing, sensory learning, emergent, Reggio Emilia project approach, critical thinking, and problem solving—environments where a child’s questions and interests can emerge.

So, here is our question: Why is it a given in a Jewish early childhood learning environment that we have children make New Year’s cards for Rosh Ha-Shanah? If left alone, would they spontaneously ask to make these cards? We know the answer to that. They might only if they had had enough real experience with New Year’s cards for them to be interested in making one for someone. Is that the case with our children?

Rosh ha-Shanah. Stop and Smell the Honey

Idie Benjamin and Dale Sides Cooperman

School is starting or has only just begun.

Everything is new.

We don’t know the children.

We don’t know the parents.

We don’t have a sense of the group yet.

AND WE HAVE TO TEACH ROSH HA-SHANAH AND YOM KIPPUR RIGHT AWAY!!

Wait! Stop and smell the honey!

Remember what we know about learners, young and older alike.

• •Our priorities in the beginning are to help our students to become comfortable in the classroom and to begin building a classroom community.
• •A curriculum has to be meaningful and developmentally and chronologically appropriate.
• •Confusing children is never a good idea. What is learned when stories, songs, activities, projects, etc are all jumbled on top of one another?
• •If a child won’t “learn” what we are teaching, why are we teaching it?
• •The world will not end if a child does not make a New Year’s card this year.

Rabbi Tarfon taught: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but you are not free to desist from it either” (Pirkei Avot 2:16).

Rather than a crisis, this is an opportunity to examine our teaching. What is our vision? What are our goals? Are we a closet teacher? A closet teacher has a box in the closet for each holiday and a predetermined plan that is the same year after year. Thinking outside the box literally can be refreshing and restorative.

Artfully Speaking by Laurie Bellet

Starting with a Clean Slates

A New Year, a fresh start, it is time to begin with a ‘clean slate,’ literally. You can purchase individual student slates, approximately 6”x9, at local craft stores. The slate’s wood frame gives space for any sort of decorating you wish. Write the alef-bet or a blessing around the outside. Add symbols for the New Year or ones. Ask students to embellish the frame with pictures or stickers that reflect their personalities and interests. The wood frame takes acrylic paints and paint pens without spreading like marker will. Seal pictures or stickers with Mod Podge for a decoupage finish. Use tacky glue to insure that your collaged pieces will not fall off. (The individual chalkboards from Oriental Trading Company have plastic frames. You can write on these with permanent markers.) Then, save those slates for student use throughout the year. Practice your Hebrew lettering on the slate instead of using paper. Have students write down their answers to your questions and hold them high for you to see. At the end of the year, reflect on all you have experienced on those once ‘clean’ slates!

Rosh ha-Shanah Projects

by Laurie Bellet

A New Year and our new students deserve a warm welcome. No matter what “big idea” you are teaching to welcome the year and your students, there is an art based learning activity destined to tantalize and excite everyone involved. The following is a brief snapshot into the “big ideas” you may be teaching this Rosh Hashanah:

Joel Grishaver

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