Each month, we designate a different charity or organization for our Shabbat Tzedakah collection. We encourage parents to tell us about organizations that are close to your hearts. Tzedakah is collected in the classrooms on Fridays during Shabbat, but feel free to bring coins in earlier in the week

if it is more convenient. Donations will be held until Fridays so the children will contribute as a group. In our newsletters, we will include as many specifics about each organization as possible so that you will understand the importance of the charity.

For the months of September and October, we will be donating the Tzedakah to donate to the Schenectady Foundation Weekend Backpack Partnership, whose goal is to support children living with food insecurity. While many students have access to meals during the school week, those same students may not have the resources to access the food and nutrition that they need while at home over the weekend. The Weekend Backpack Partnership strives to provide resources that would provide a reliable source of nutritious food. Though Niskayuna does not currently participate in this program, many neighboring districts, including Mohonasen, Scotia-Glenville, and Duanesberg have had success while participating. For more information, please visit: https://www.schenectadyfoundation.org/page/weekend-backpack-

partnership-97.html

Tzedakah

ECE Newsletter

Oct. 25, 2019

ECE

JCC Garage Sale Oct. 27

Preschool Vacation Day Programming AND Election Day Bake Sale:

Nov. 5

Veterans Day Vacation Day Programming

Nov. 11

Andrea’s Article It’s hard to believe that it’s the end of October already! The children are really settling in nicely and becoming very comfortable with their new teachers, new friends and new routines.

The children are excited to start making Shabbat ritual items next week. Before that they learned about other Jewish holidays with our good friend Rabbi Matt. Rabbi Matt blew the Shofar for Rosh Hashana , shook the lulav and the etrog for Sukkot, and also came here with the Torah to talk about Simchat Torah.

We can always count on Rabbi Matt here at the SJCC. It has been a tradition that he comes to visit and talk about the holidays. That got me thinking about traditions, especially family traditions and how important they are.

Here at the JCC, we have started many traditions such as: Fall fest, The Preschool Trip to Ellm’s Farm, The Chanukah Dinner and Art Show, 4 year old trip to Coop and much more. The following is just a sample of how important family traditions are:

The Importance of Family Traditions

Today’s families are busy and stressed. Everyone has places to go, decisions to make, deadlines to meet. Family members may live under one roof, yet be unable to find time to build a close family. The nurturing of a family should not be left to chance.

Family traditions are simple, yet powerful ways of expressing the unique character and heritage of a family. They help to build a family bond that creates security. The magic and strength of family traditions can sustain a family through many challenges of life and are especially important since they help to satisfy several needs.

Traditions can be developed for special holidays, seasons, people, places, or times of day. It is the way we make our family feel special about itself from the daily things we do as a family to the more formal traditions we include in our celebrations (holidays, birthdays, etc.).

Traditions needn’t be elaborate or expensive to be powerful. Traditions

Can include:

· eating meals together as a family more than one night a week · a special family hug before leaving in the morning · using a special plate to signify someone’s special day or accomplishment · attending a yearly event as a family (parade, etc....) · making a special food/meal for a certain event · reading books with your children before bedtime · a special handshake or cheer used to celebrate · share old photographs and stories to learn about

the past (family history)

What are those family habits that make your family unique? Discover

those things that make your family unique. Now more than ever, families need to establish that foundation which creates a sense of family security and offers a way to experience the family’s uniqueness, character and heritage.

Toddler Playgroup

Jamie and Anne

The season of fall has been a huge theme for us! We have done many art and creative projects surrounding fall. Projects like apple prints where we cut an apple in half, dipped it in paint and made prints on colored paper. We have also made handprint leaves where we painted each students hand with paint (orange, red and yellow) and turned the handprint into a leaf. Those pictures are hanging on the wall for you to see! We have also done free art and used paint dabbers and paint sticks. We have colored scarecrow colorings pages and spent time doing some free drawing. On 10/10, Rabbi Matt came to visit! He led a small lesson about the holiday of Sukkot outside in the Sukkah. We learned about the Etrog (citrus plant) and Lalav(closed front of the date palm tree) which he shook together and said a blessing. We also got scientific! Ms. Beth from the green room led some awesome science experiments for us using pumpkins. She dissolved Mentos in Diet Coke inside of a hallowed out pumpkin! She also did the same experiment using vinegar and baking soda. Very cool to see all the bubbles! We have a new friend Kepler who joined our playgroup 3 days a week! What a great addition to the class! We still continue to have story time with Rebecca every Tuesday which everyone really enjoys. We go outside to the playground as often as we can. With the weather getting colder, warm jackets, gloves and hats are encouraged. Reminders: JCC Garage Sale 10/27, NO Toddler Playgroup 10/29 due to Niskayuna Half Day

Blue Room

Meta, Elena & Shweta

Shalom again from the Blue Room. Hard to believe October is almost over. We have been busy as bees in the Blue Room learning all about the Jewish holidays and finishing the month discussing where we live and fire safety.

Rosh Hashanah and the start of the year are perfect together, two New Years to celebrate. The children enjoyed many books, tasting apples dipped in honey and especially Rabbi Matt blowing the shofar. We made apple sauce from scratch that made the room smell so good while it was cooking all day! Then came Yom Kippur, the “I’m sorry day.” Again, we read many books, the class especially enjoyed the Sammy Spider book about Yom Kippur. We discussed being sorry and mostly about trying to do better.

After the High Holy days came a personal favorite of Meta’s, Sukkot, the harvest holiday. We learned what a harvest is and how all of us have “harvested” crops such as apples, berries and vegetables in our gardens. For Sukkot we baked an apple crumble pie, many of the Blue Room children love to cook. Rabbi Matt came for a third time to bless the JCC sukkah. Thankfully the weather was beautiful. We also went on a nature walk to observe the changes since our last nature walk at the beginning of the school year – oh what changes we saw – the trees were so beautiful in their new colors. We then returned and enjoyed our snack in the sukkah. The final holiday of the Fall was Simchat Torah. Rabbi Matt came once more and this time he brought a real Torah. The children got to see the different symbols that make up Hebrew and hear a little of the Torah read by Rabbi Matt. Then we paraded around the JCC and sang the Torah, Torah song.

This past week has been all about homes and where we live, working on identifying our home addresses and looking at different types of homes, even animal homes. We also talked about fire safety, how to use 911 to call for help and how important it is to learn our home address. We are very excited about the fire fighters coming Monday with the firetruck. Let’s hope the weather cooperates!

Thank you to all the parents who drove for the field trip to Ellms Family Farm, we wouldn’t be able to have these wonderful events without you! Next week we turn our attention to Shabbat. Please send in a shoe box for your child’s Shabbat box. As the weather turns cooler, we still try to go outdoors every day so make sure to send in jackets and hats (labeled of course.)

Purple Room

Heather & Nirmala

Hello everyone, Shabbat Shalom! October has been a busy month for the 3 year olds. This month we have been talking about pumpkins! We opened a pumpkin up, and did some experiments with its insides. The children had a blast using magnify glasses, tweezers, and test tubes to further investigate pumpkins seeds. We also had an amazing trip to Ellms family farm! The children loved picking out pumpkins, and doing the various activities the farm had to offer! Thank you so much for all that came. In the last week of October we will be working on our Shabbat boxes (so please bring in a shoebox if you haven’t already). Finally, in the beginning of November we will be talking about giving Thanks, Family, and of course Thanksgiving.

Along with having a busy schedule daily the children find time to do things that they love around the classroom. Lucas, Julian, Wesley, Owen, Hiro, and Kaleb, our construction workers enjoy spending their time building towers and buildings with various materials such as blocks, and magnets. Our artists; Lucy, Allison, and Zoe, love making wonderful art pieces for their loved ones and friends from a variety of mediums found around the classroom. Myles, Joey, Edmund, Kayden, and Abram, the race car drivers, have a blast racing through the classroom to see which car is the fastest of them all. Patrick, Elliot,and Kevin, the little scientists, had an amazing time exploring the insides of the pumpkin, and making hypothesis of what will happen next.

I just wanted to say thank you again for all that came out to help at Ellms Farm, and I just have a few reminders, please check your mailbox everyday for any important information. On Swim days if you could please have your child come in, in their swimsuit, that would be much appreciated, and lastly we have our ECE garage sale this weekend if anyone would like to come out and help that would be amazing. As always if you have any questions or concerns please come and see Nirmala or myself, our door is always open.

Sign up to Volunteer here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0549a5ad2ea2f58-garage2

Or sign up to volunteer here:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0549a5ad2ea2f58-election3

Schenectady Jewish Community Center

2565 Balltown Rd

Schenectady, NY 12309

Phone: 518-377-8803

Fax: 518-377-5530

E-mail: sarahm@schenectadyjcc.org

andreal@schenectadyjcc.org

Early Childhood

Education

SCHENECTADY JEWISH

COMMUNITY CENTER

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