Let’s all go on a Surfin’ Safari!

Last week was Island Favorites week here at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Camps. The Beach Boys set the soundtrack for a rockin’ good time as we all brought the fun of the Islands to camp!

While our Merrick/Bellmore kids had a ball learning animal poses in Yoga and doing forward rolls in Judo, it was our Island celebrations that stole the show! In Art, everyone loved creating “Aloha” picture frames and having our counselors take lovely photos to insert in them. We also made Island visors and learned all about palm trees and coconuts!

We finished up a week of Island snow cones and blue Jell-O treats that reminded us of the ocean by having a big beach party! Everyone had fun doing lobster and crab dance moves, having a fish toss and jelly fish jump, and some parachute play with beach balls. When the Beach Boys came on we all had a great time doing the limbo dance!

Parachute Fun at our Beach Party!

Over in Oceanside the Island fun kicked off with a Long Island Dance-A-Thon! Everyone donned Hawaiian leis and showed off their dance moves to some of our Island favorites. We even played a riveting game of freeze dance to get everyone up and having a good time!

The rest of the week was full of fun Island themed crafts and snacks. Blue Jell-O provided the perfect backdrop to make edible aquariums with starfish sprinkles (some of us even added whipped cream on top to make them extra delicious).  Then in Art, Miss Ronnie helped us decorate t-shirts with all kinds of cool Island stencils, colorful fabric paint, and lots of sparkles!

Blue Jell-O looks just like the an aquarium!

Our Long Beach campers had so much on their Island vacation. We brought some Bob Marley into our Beach Boys mix for a really groovy musical backdrop this week. We also had our very own Hawaiian luau! Everyone danced the hula in grass skirts and flower leis (complete with fruit loops in between the flowers), which we made ourselves, and ate lots of fresh pineapple. We also made our own edible aquariums out of pancakes and blue frosting!

The highlight of everyone’s week at Long Beach was when we decided to head outside and make our own erupting volcano! We brought out some bottles of Diet Coke and a few rolls of mint flavored Mentos and got ready to watch a real “volcanic” reaction. Want to see what we saw? Check out this awesome video of our experiment:

Boy, the Island life sure is fun! We can’t wait to see what’s in store for us this week at camp. Keep checking in with us on our Friedberg JCC Early Childhood and Friedberg JCC Summer Camps Facebook pages, and don’t forget to check Bunk 1 for great camp photos all summer long!

Life is the Bubbles… Under the Sea!

It was Under the Sea week here in Preschool Camp last week, and boy was it “off the hook”!

At our Long Beach site, our kids discovered and developed their sense of “ruach” (spirit/heart) during this fun week. While playing at the water table we talked about being kind to each other as we splashed and cooled down together with our counselors! Later during Art, we decided that nobody liked a crabby camper, but everyone loved making paper plate crabs. We each let our creative spirit take over, making each of our crabs personal and unique!

Keeping cool and having fun at our water table!

Our campers also extended their ruach towards plants and nature this week by returning to the garden to clean, pull weeds, and water and prepare the soil for planting. We can’t wait to see the results! The week concluded with Dag (Fish) Shabbat and talking about how wonderful and beautiful fish can be!

At Merrick/Bellmore this week, we crafted beautiful fishbowls and each gave a starfish a home! Sea Turtle Pies were a big hit, and everyone agreed that the pudding, cool whip, and caramel syrup tasted delicious! We had even more fun celebrating all things under the sea when we made our sand art projects. Everyone especially enjoyed pouring colored sand through a funnel and into plastic bottles to watch a rainbow form right before their eyes!

What better way to celebrate fish than swimming?

Under the Sea carried into Shabbat when we celebrated Sea Creature Shabbat! We played lots of fun games like Feed the Shark Toss and Pin the Tail on the Whale. We even took out our parachute and played games to The Little Mermaid and Finding Nemo!

In Oceanside, our week started with everyone showing off their biggest and brightest smiles for picture day! Those smiles stayed on our faces as we celebrated Under the Sea week in Art. We made sand art and an underwater snow globe full of sand, glitter, and water. Everyone loved shaking them up and watching the glitter fly!

Underwater Snow Globes!

The theme of the week continued in Judaica where we learned all about Jonah and the whale. In music too we kept with our theme by singing songs about Nemo the fish! And of course playing in the pool and in the sprinklers made us feel like real fish in the water!

Once again this week, all of our Pre-K campers took a trip to our Campgrounds! Our campers from Long Beach played a great round of mini-golf, while the Merrick/Bellmore group had fun running some “wacky relays”, and the Oceanside campers had fun painting ceramic starfish! Everyone had a yummy lunch and a nice cool dip in the pool.

The highlight of our trip though was seeing the Mama Doni Band perform!! Wow! We had so much fun singing and dancing along to the music with all of Junior Camp.  Everyone’s energy was high as we jumped up and down, waved our hands in the air, and even played air guitars! What can we say? “Each little clam here know how to jam here, Under the Sea!”

Having a blast with Mama Doni!!

Want to see some great photos of our summer? Head on over to Friedberg JCC Early Childhood or Friedberg JCC Summer Camps on Facebook, or to our Bunk 1 website! We’ve even taken it up a notch this summer by joining Instagram. You can see our “vintage” camp photos under the username Friedbergjcc.

Have a great week everyone, and don’t forget to “just keep swimming!”

Hello Summer!!

Wow! What an incredible, exciting, very busy few weeks we have had! Our wonderful school year went out with a bang as we proudly watched our Preschool students put on caps and gowns and receive their diplomas. We will miss them all dearly, but are so excited for them to begin Kindergarten this fall!

Oceanside graduates are just adorable!

While we were sad to see the school year come to a close, everybody was bursting with excitement to start the summer. After a great Mini Camp session, our full summer Camp kicked off to an amazing start!

We started off our summer by getting to know our new friends and learning all about how much fun camp can be. Everyone had a great time making beautiful art projects, playing on our playgrounds, and singing camp songs! We all had so much fun, we couldn’t wait to see what was in store for us for the July 4^th Celebration week, we just knew it was going to be great…

And great it was!

Over in Oceanside, our littlest campers had a great time meeting new friends and getting to know their counselors.  In art, we took seashells and made beautiful picture frames to bring home to our families. We also got to bring home plants after planting in our classroom terrariums; we are so excited to watch them grow!

Our Oceanside kids also had the best time swimming in the pool with our counselors and friends. What a perfect way to cool down in this summer heat! Our favorite part of the week though was celebrating Independence Day with a special “All American Dessert” for snack. We each got a delicious piece of pound cake that we covered with red strawberries, blue blueberries, and white whipped cream… yum!

Oceanside loves swimming in the pool!

In Merrick/Bellmore, we also kept cool during this hot summer by hitting the pool at Newbridge Park. Everyone practiced their swimming skills and played with loads of water toys, but all agreed that the most fun was splashing our counselors!

Our littlest Merrick/Bellmore campers played in water sensory tables 

July 4^th was celebrated in Merrick by making red, white, and blue patriotic frames and flags. We also had a yummy American dessert of pie filled with strawberries, blueberries, and vanilla ice cream! We even rounded off our week with a great Fourth of July Dance Off contest!!

  

Long Beach at the HKC pool!

Perhaps the best part of the week for our Merrick 4’s was joining our Long Beach 4’s and heading out to the Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds to spend the day with our friends in Junior Camp. Everyone painted beautiful ceramic Starfish magnets, played with more bubbles then we’ve ever seen, rode on the train, and swam in a beautiful pool! The day finished off with a cool treat of ices and a fun trip home on the bus. We can’t wait to go back again and again this summer!

Merrick on the Train!

Also in Long Beach this week, a patriotic twist was placed on all of our camp activities. Our art period took us outside so we could get really messy making our own fireworks by flicking bright colored paint onto black paper (Jackson Pollack would be proud)! During out Little Chefs activity, we made edible sparklers by covering pretzel rods in vanilla frosting and rolling them in red, white and blue sprinkles. Who knew sparklers could be so yummy?!

One of our great Sparkler Paintings!

Our Long  Beach kids also took a trip to our garden to talk about fruits and vegetables. We noticed that the weather was really hot and decided our plants must be extra thirsty, so we made sure to give them lots of water to help them through this heat! Afterwards, we came indoors and put some of our favorite fruit – strawberries and blueberries – over vanilla ice cream for a 4^th of July dessert.

Planting in our Garden in Long Beach

Even music and Shabbat were patriotic this week in Long Beach. During music time we sang songs like “This Land is Your Land” and “I’m Proud to be an American.” Then, on Shabbat, we used red, white and blue food coloring in our cream cheese to spread on our challah!

As you can see, we’re off to a great start in Camp this summer. We can’t wait to see all of the fun things that are in store for us these next few weeks. You can keep track of all of the fun on both our Early Childhood and Friedberg JCC Family of Camps Facebook pages, and you can find hundreds of photos on our Bunk 1 website!

Happy Camping Everyone! 

Dirt Isn't Dirty!

“Don’t touch that, it’s dirty!”

“Wash your hands before you eat!”

“You’re getting mud all over the place!”

How often do we hear and use these phrases with our children? In the last decade or two, D-I-R-T has become a four-letter word in the eyes of a vast majority of parents. The fact is that dirt, it seems, is not so dirty. Actually, it’s incredibly beneficial to your child’s growth and development, both physically and mentally.

We have already talked about how getting outside is important in getting young children to stay active, helping to avoid major health issues such as childhood obesity, diabetes, and vitamin D deficiency. It turns out that dirt takes this one step further. Being exposed to the different bacteria and other microorganisms found in dirt helps build your child’s immune system. Certain bacteria can even stimulate the production of serotonin in our brains (an affect similar to that of exercising or taking anti-depressant medication), keeping our children naturally happier.

Here at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers, we are doing our best every day to make sure our children experience the joy of dirt! Even last week’s lingering April showers couldn’t dampen the spirits of our preschoolers, and everyone found themselves enjoying being outside and getting a little dirty.

Over in Long Beach our two’s took nature walks and noticed that they saw more insects on the grey days that were a little cooler, rather than when the sun was out. Our three’s also spent time outdoors as they began preparing our nursery school garden for plants. They dug in the dirt, and even made a mud pie. Yum!

Our Long Beach Pre-K kids got an extra special treat this week when the Truck Farm visited from Brooklyn! Ian and James told us all about the garden they grow in the back of their flatbed truck, and (thanks to plexiglass sides) showed us not only the plants they grow, but their roots and layers of soil as well! We asked a lot of questions about planting and gardening, but most importantly learned that you can grow plants practically anywhere (even in your Daddy’s hat)!

Long Beach Pre-K loved the Truck Farm!

Friday in Merrick/Bellmore was Special Person’s Day. We were all so excited to share our love of the outdoors with some very important people! We began the day by making a fun art extension project together with our special people. Next, everyone made their way outside to our playground to do some planting! We have new planter boxes outside, and had lots of fun taking turns digging up the dirt to put in flowers. We can’t wait to watch the bloom and bring so much natural beauty to our playground!

Planting with a "Special Person" in Merrick/Bellmore

Meanwhile, in Oceanside the children were spending so much wonderful time outdoors. Our Pre-K classes set butterflies free after watching their metamorphosis from caterpillars. It was so exciting to see them fly off into the sky!

Miss Caryn’s class decided it would be a ton of fun to express themselves artistically outside of our building. We all hit the pavement with lots of colored chalk and had a ball covering the sidewalk (and ourselves) with brightly colored chalk dust. Don’t worry,  soap and water rinsed it all away!  The Oceanside two’s also had a great time running, jumping, climbing and sliding all over our playground. No matter what the weather, we have fun outdoors!

We love sidewalk chalk in Oceanside!

Interested in learning more about the benefits of your child getting outdoors and getting dirty? We love this great report from the National Wildlife Federation!

Of course, don’t forget to check out our Pinterest  for more ideas of things to do in the great outdoors. And head over to our Facebook for tons of photos from this week’s fun!

A Word From Our Directors...

Let's Get Reading!

Ellen Hoffman, Vice President of Merrick/Bellmore Services

            Summer is just around the corner, and so too is the importance of reading daily with your children. 

         Reading together provides a wonderful opportunity for one-on-one time with your little one.  Jim Trelease, author and educational authority on reading aloud, has found that there is a strong correlation between being read to and a child’s desire to read.  Choose books to read aloud that are two levels above your child’s age or grade.

 Take a book with you this summer wherever you go.  During a car ride you can discuss a book you’ve read the day before.  Play a game recalling details of a story by omitting key words and let your child fill them in.  Children love repetition and enjoy reading the same book over and over again.  Ask your child to “read” the pictures and tell you the story.  You will be surprised to learn how much your youngster retains!

Technology is amazing and plays a very important role in all our lives, but should never replace that very special time of the day when you cuddle up with your child and a special book.

HAPPY READING!

Looking for a great read? Check out our Pinterest board for some of our favorite books!

Screen Free Week!

Last week, the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers participated in a very special project: Screen Free Week!  The CCFC (Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood) encourages families every year to turn off as many screens as they can, for as long as they can for 7 days. In doing so, we learn to “turn on life” and practice healthy habits such as playing outdoors, reading, and spending quality time with family.

All of our children were very busy all week long learning and playing in many different ways; none of which involved a screen!

At our Merrick/Bellmore site, Spring is the big topic. Some of our classes have butterfly kits and are busy observing the daily changes in their caterpillars as they start to turn into butterflies! We are watching them eat and grow as they get ready for this exciting transformation!

Also at Merrick/Bellmore, we are learning about April Showers and May Flowers (although it seems lately that the showers have come in May as well)! Not only are we making umbrellas and beautiful flowers to decorate, but we are also learning about how flowers and plants need the rain in order to grow. 

Finally, each of our Merrick/Bellmore families were fully encouraged to participate in Screen Free Week by filling out a daily log of screen free activities. We found out that our families played dress up, went to the playground, drew pictures, and even baked their own pizzas! We are so proud of everyone for truly recognizing this great holiday.

In Oceanside, our children celebrated another holiday as well as Screen Free Week: Cinco de Mayo!!  While we could log onto the internet or watch something on TV to find out about Mexico’s heritage, we chose to lean about it in a more hands on way. We wore Mexican costumes and marched around with cool instruments like Maracas to showcase what we learned!

Happy Cinco de Mayo from Oceanside!

At our Long Beach branch, everyone is a flutter about butterflies! Just like our friends in Merrick/Bellmore, we are witnessing firsthand the incredible transformation process of a caterpillar into a butterfly. This week we were excited to see our caterpillars begin their chrysalis phase of metamorphosis. Everyone was so fascinated; it was hard not to touch them!

In keeping with Screen Free Week, everyone read books about butterflies to enhance our learning. Our two’s read Dawn Bentley’s “Goodnight Sweet Butterfly,” and the classes “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. They also made paper butterflies that we decorated with beautiful colored tissue paper. Our three’s took a slightly different approach and made their butterflies out of plastic bags filled with sequins and glitter! They then also read “The Butterfly Garden” by Sue Harris.

Last but not least, our Long Beach Pre-K enjoyed reading “Angelina and the Butterfly” by Katherine Holibird.  Afterward,, everyone was so excited to watch their teachers carefully transfer this week’s newly formed cocoons into their new butterfly pavilions! We are all hoping that the butterflies will emerge from their cocoons in time for this week’s trip to the Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds!

See how much fun and learning can happen when we turn our screens off? Even though Screen Free Week is over, we would like to encourage everyone to continue every day to spend as little time as possible in front of their television and computer screens.  If you’re ever looking for a great activity to fill in the time usually spent with video games or the internet, check out the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood on Pinterest! We promise to post great activities on a regular basis in order to help provide your family with the best ideas for learning, growing, and having fun together!

Want to see more great pictures of our week? Head to our Facebook page for some great smiling faces!

A Word From Our Directors...

The Importance of Summer Camp

Helene Nelson  

Director of Early Childhood- Oceanside Branch

As summer quickly approaches, it is the perfect time to explore why a summer camp experience can be so important for the youngest of children. 

Children as young as two, who are involved in day camp program are exposed to social, physical and sensory activities that allow them to take risks in a safe, nurturing setting. Through art, children are free to express their creativity, develop fine motor skills and expressive language skills. Age appropriate sports, swimming/water play, music/dance, help enhance gross motor development. Social skills are an important part child development as well.  Taking turns, sharing, choosing partners and following directions play an important role in developing social skills, as well as developing self confidence.

With the alarming rise of childhood obesity, it is important to note that children in camp are spending their day being physically active. Being unplugged from the many technological devices at home (yes…even as young as two!) children are allowed to use their imaginations and explore their environment using all their senses. 

When choosing a camp or summer program for your child, it is important to look at who will be with them all day. Who will influence their development and encourage them as they explore their surroundings. 

At the Friedberg JCC early childhood camps, we encourage and guide young children through summer experiences designed especially with them in mind.

Summer camp is also a wonderful opportunity for parents to help their young child transition to school in the fall. It’s a great place to make lifelong friends and special memories.

And most importantly…camp is fun!

Interested in finding out more about our summer camps? Come on out to our Camp Open House this Sunday, May 6^th at the Henry Kaufman Campgrounds in Wheatley Heights, NY. We’ll be there from 11am-1pm ready to have a great time with you and your children!

Can’t make it this Sunday? Check out our website, give us a call, or stop into any of our three branch sites at any time for more information!

Preschool Camp Contacts:


Oceanside: Helene Nelson, Director of Early Childhood 
Hnelson@friedbergjcc.org 516-634-4167


Long Beach: Paula Wall, Early Childhood Coordinator  
Pwall@friedbergjcc.org 516-431-2929


Merrick/Bellmore: Ellen Hoffman, Vice President of Merrick/Bellmore Services    Ehoffman@friedbergjcc.org 516-379-9386