Happy Birthday Israel!

Wow!! What a wonderful week to be at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers. Yesterday, April 26^th we celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut- Israeli Independence Day, and boy do we know how to throw a party!

In Oceanside all of our children donned special Israeli flag hats and signs as we marched around the whole building! We waved our Israeli flags high in the air so that all of the JCC members would know we were celebrating this very special birthday.

At the end of our special parade, we all gathered for a wonderful sing-a-long with Miss Diane and Miss Brooke. This was made extra special when Rabbi Greenspan from Oceanside Jewish Center joined us and taught us how to sing “Happy Birthday to Israel” in Hebrew!! We were all so proud of ourselves for learning to celebrate Israel in its national language.

We finished off this spectacular day by heading back to our classrooms for snack. But this wasn’t just any snack… we had blue and white birthday cupcakes that we baked ourselves for this very special occasion! Everyone had smiles (and frosting) all over their faces!!

Yummy Cupcakes in Oceanside!

Meanwhile over in Long Beach…

We kicked off our celebration with an outdoor parade around the block wearing hats that we made so the whole neighborhood could rejoice with us!! Earlier in the week, every classroom made their own flags to wave, which we all did in different ways.  Our Two’s used their flags to review the colors blue and white, while the Three’s broke down the different shapes on the flag and talked about rectangles and triangles. Finally, our Pre-K kids learned how to illustrate their own flags.  Drawing one triangle right-side-up and another one up-side-down can be quite difficult, and we were touched to see our children who grasped the concept the easiest helping their friends until they were all successful!

After our parade we came back to our classrooms and talked about why Israel is important to us. Some of our favorite responses included:

Two-year-olds: “Because it’s Israel’s birthday!”

Three-year-olds: “My Safta lives there!” and “They have lots of dreidels there!”

Pre-K: “It’s a really old country; it’s bigger than a city; it’s 64 years old” and “Because it’s close and very far away at the same time!”

Our Long Beach children also had the pleasure of working with Miss Yochi to learn the Israeli national anthem- Hatikvah. We’re so proud of them!! Check out this wonderful video of our Pre-K  kids singing:

As you can see, it was a spectacular week full of celebration!

Next week is really important to us too; it’s national Screen Free Week. We have been talking all month long about the importance of outdoor play and recently celebrated Earth Day, so it makes perfect sense that it all culminates in this celebration. You will hear all about Screen Free Week from us next Friday, but in the meantime check out http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/screenfreeweek/ to prepare yourself and your family for the week ahead.

Check out our Facebook for more great pictures from this week’s celebrations!

Let's Play Outdoors!

Take a deep breath……..close your eyes……….. and think back to your  best childhood memories from the four seasons. If we had to guess, we would imagine they look something like this:

Jumping in piles of leaves and pumpkin picking in the Fall.

Building snowmen and going sledding in the Winter.

Digging for worms and wiggling your toes in the mud during Spring.

Running through sprinkler, climbing trees, digging in sand in the Summer.

Were we right?

Now try it again, only this time think about what you see children (yours and others) doing during each of those seasons. We don’t know about you, but we see less of outdoors and more video games, watching television, and sitting at a computer.

As the speed of our day-to-day lives starts to move faster and faster, so do the lives of our children.

Too often we see parents, who are exhausted and over extended, sitting their young ones down in front of a screen for hours on end. Even in Walt Disney World, a place designed for families to share experiences and create memories, parents were seen handing old iPods to fussy children in strollers rather than engaging them in their surroundings.

Outdoor play not only moves us away from this “screen epidemic”, it is also incredibly important to your child’s growth and development.

Outdoor play encourages physical activity!

According to First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, “ nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese”- a problem that may lead to heart disease, diabetes, or a number of other health risks. Outdoor, open spaces encourage running, jumping, climbing, and many more physical activities that are beneficial to adults and children alike!

Being outside promotes creativity!  

The moment they step outside, your children are surrounded with colors, shapes, and textures. What a perfect place to inspire a young artist or builder without the fear of ruining your new carpeting! Throw on some old jeans and a ratty t-shirt and get to work building with mud and drawing on sidewalks.  Draw on the sidewalk with chalk or water color paint!  We promise your children (and you) will love this form of self-expression!

The outdoors is incredibly stimulating!  

There is so much learning that can go on the moment you step outside.  Young children learn through their senses so, the simple act of smelling a flower, watching a butterfly flap its wings, or hearing the leaves rustle in the breeze help shape their minds as they begin to understand the world around them.

Here at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers we will be joining the rest of our nation to celebrate two very important “holidays” this month:

Earth Day on April 22^nd.  What better way to celebrate Earth Day than getting outside?  Join us at the Henry Kaufman campgrounds for an open house.  Meet former NY Yankee Ron Blomberg and enjoy some fun Earth Day craft projects. Check out our website for more information!

Screen Free Week from April 30^th-May 6^th.   Throughout the next three weeks, we will be encouraging every one of our families to move away from their screens and into the great outdoors! We’ll be posting our favorite ways to do this on our Facebook page starting Monday!

Looking for more information on the importance of getting outdoors? Check out this great article Take It Outside! from Early Childhood News!

Zissen Pesach Everyone!!

Looking at the pictures of the three centers’ Passover celebrations is a sight to behold!  It’s amazing how much learning took place while the children had a blast. 

Egyptians Marching At Oceanside!

What’s particularly interesting are all the ways that Passover is celebrated in our centers.  It’s reflective of the many ways  that we celebrate Passover in our homes.  Our children take the lessons they’ve learned in school and add another dimension (often extremely entertaining) to our Seder tables.

Singing Passover Songs At Merrick/Bellmore

At my own home, our favorite time at the Seder table were our boys singing “Frogs here” or “Bang, Bang, Bang,” with such feeling that you knew the moment created a lifetime of happy memories.

As we prepare for tonight, many of our children are helping decorate the tables with their own Kiddush cup, Seder Plate or Matzoh Cover they made at school.  These experiences are learning at it’s finest.   Interactive, hands on and fun.

Enjoying Yummy Matzah At Long Beach!

However you celebrate, from our homes to yours, we wish you a Zissen Pesach, and lifetime of memories.

Check out more great seder pictures here!

Passover Pancakes!!

Our very own Karen Horowitz, Director of Parenting Resource Network has been kind enough to share with us her wonderful recipe for Passover Pancakes!!! We hope these come in handy when you're looking for a yummy breakfast that everyone will enjoy during this Chametz-free week!



Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup crushed matzoh crackers
• 3/4 cup scalded milk
• 1 tablespoon margarine, melted
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup matzoh meal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Vegetable oil
• Powdered sugar
• Syrup

Equipment:

• Bowl
• Spoon
• Griddle
• Spatula

1.     Place the matzoh crumbs in a bowl and add the scalded milk and melted margarine. Allow this to sit until the crumbs are soft. Add the beaten egg and the dry ingredients to the mixture, and mix with a spoon until blended.

2.     Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto a heated, oiled griddle. Cook until lightly browned on one side and flip to the other side. Continue cooking until this side is golden brown. Remove to a plate and serve with powdered sugar and syrup. 

You might want to add some fresh fruit while they're cooking to make them tasty and nutritious. We recommend sliced apples, sliced peaches, sliced strawberries, or blueberries! Enjoy!!

Miss Shlomit's Passover Oatmeal Cookies!

Kosher for Passover dessert!? We know it sounds dry, bland and quite frankly, a bit scary... But fear no more! Our very own Miss Shlomit has shared her ultra yummy recipe for Passover Oatmeal Cookies that we promise won't be dry or bland (and definitely not scary)!

Ingredients:   makes approx. 24 cookies


1 Cup Matzo Meal
1 Cup Matzo Farfel
1/3 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/3 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/4 Tsp. Nutmeg
1 Cup Raisins or Chocolate Chips (or 1/2 Cup of each!)
1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts
1/2 Cup Oil
2 Eggs

Directions:


1) Combine Matzo Meal, farfel, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, chocolate chips, and nuts. Set aside.

2) Beat oil with eggs until light and thick.

3) Stir in Matzo Meal mixture until thoroughly moistened.

4) Drop onto greased cookie sheet.

5) Flatten with fork into 2" round cookies.

6) Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

7) Remove immediately.

8) Enjoy!!


Thank you so much to Miss. Shlomit for sharing!

Do you have a favorite Passover recipe? We would love to hear it! Just leave it in a comment here, or post it on our Facebook wall!