Kofim Classroom
Preschool (age 3 by September 1)
Classroom hours 9:00 am — 1:00 pm
Three days a week attendance for core hours required.
Daily Schedule
- 9:00: Arrival, Classroom Exploration, Activity of the Day
- 10:10: Hand washing, Snack, Toileting
- 10:30: Toileting, set up for Group Time (carpet squares)
- 10:40: Group Time (Meeting, Music, Movement, Book Look)
- 11:20: Cleanup
- 11:30: Outdoor time
- 12:15: Mitzvah Moment, Lunch, Toothbrushing, Toileting, prepare for home, transition to napping and enrichment rooms
Kofim parent
Kofim parent
Yearly Themes
1. Developing positive Social /Emotional skills is key to our Kofim Class. We love to use “thinking” questions throughout our day to encourage social-emotional acuity, emergent language and cognitive development. For example, at our circle/meeting time, our children are frequently shown photographs of other children displaying a variety of emotions. In practice guided by the Second Step Curriculum, we may ask: “would you like to tell us about the picture?” “What do you think the child(ren) are thinking?” We ask, “I wonder what you are wondering about this picture? “What do you think happened before the picture was taken?” We ask the children if they can “name” what the child is feeling (happy, sad, angry, etc.) We ask if they have ever felt that way. We ask if they can show us that emotion. This curriculum is the foundation for understanding ourselves and each other and we use it throughout the year.
2. Mitzvot (literally translated as “commandments,” but often used to refer to “acts of loving kindness and caring”) are key to the foundation of our classroom and in the other classes as well. We like to “catch” our children doing kind deeds for each other. Our class uses a tree with paper “mitzvah” leaves to symbolize the caring that is shared among our Kofim children. When a child offers a kind word, or performs a kind deed for another child (or teacher) we attach a leaf to our tree with words describing the deed. Just prior to lunch each day we all go to the tree for a “mitzvah moment” and one child points to a leaf and we read the words out loud reminding all of us of a mitzvah that occurred in our classroom.
3. Patience is a theme that develops throughout the entire year in our Kofim classroom, again in both social/emotional and intellectual domains. The children learn to wait for a turn to use a toy, to speak in our group setting and even to go to the sink to wash hands before snack and mealtime. We also learn patience through observation when waiting for our plants to grow. By caring for their plants — providing water, sunshine, transplanting when needed and drawing observations — the children have actually seen the fruits of their labors. Each year we watch and wait patiently for five months as our corn seeds grow to maturity, until we are finally able to pick our corn on the cob and husk it. Yes, the ears of corn are miniature in size but the children are as proud as can be!
Patience, flexibility and self-regulation come with time and practice. We have plenty of time to practice all three in our classroom through experiential activities based in science, math, art, literacy and motor development. It is through these hands on experiences that our children are gaining awareness and age appropriate proficiency in the skills necessary for them to move to the next developmental level.
Dream for our Kofim Children
We envision a classroom space where our children will interact with each other and the materials in ways that will bring them together as a caring community. We offer developmentally appropriate opportunities for small group and large group exploration and a broad selection of activities that will enable our children to grow in all the learning domains.