April 2019
Welcoming Our New Play Structure
With tremendous joy and celebration we welcomed a beautiful new addition to our ECC environment. Our indoor playroom is now enhanced with a new structure for climbing, sliding, hiding, and exploring.
We had a beautiful dedication ceremony with all the threes and fours. The children shared their own ideas about how we should interact together with kindness and respect when we are playing. We read the list of their ideas and then made a brit, a covenant, that we would adhere to those rules.
After that, Rabbi Lucas gave the structure a Hebrew name; we will call it our mischakiyah, a place to play. Giving something a name creates intention and raises its importance.
On top of the ECC’s new mischakiyah is a telescope. How far can the children see through this telescope? As far as their imagination will take them!
The children joined with Susan and Rabbi Lucas in reciting the special Shehecheyanu blessing, which is said whenever we do something for the first time.
We concluded the ceremony by singing together a song of peace. It is surely an exciting time as we look forward to playing on the mischakiyah for many years to come.
As we continue to enhance our environment with new materials and equipment, we always make sure to pause and keep the emphasis on the children and what they will do with the resources of the ECC. Everything in our school has the intention of providing opportunities for building ways for us to be together.
When the children first started climbing up to the top of the mischakiyah, it felt at times crowded, and they sometimes stepped on each other’s toes. This gave the children a chance to learn how to work through the struggle and figure out how to fix things.
This beautiful structure was purchased with money raised by our Educational Enhancement Fund. Many thanks to the board for all their hard work creating events that raise money for the fund, and to all those who contribute to the fund to pay tribute to special people, to recognize special occasions, to express gratitude to the teachers, or in honor of a lifecycle event.
