As Nursery students prepared for the upcoming celebratory holiday of Purim, there was much excitement and silliness to be had by all! The teachers transformed the atelier in the Nursery suite into “Vashti’s Closet,” full of costumes, accessories and much more for the young learners to explore. Children seek out dressing up naturally and love to share their experiences with their peers. Exploring dramatic play through dressing up helps to foster imagination and allows children to try on different roles and characters. Dressing up and trying on different personas encourages the students to retell the brave and festive story of Purim. 

The students also decorated crowns for the festivities with jewels and sparkly markers. They practiced their “Shushan castle” building skills by stamping with castle-style blocks in paint and tracing the shapes, building castles in the shadows of a spotlight and mirrors and finally, observational drawings of different Shushan castles, where the story of Purim took place. 

Their participation in all of the holidays' customs continued as they listened to the story of Megillat Esther and shook their rashanim (noise-makers) when they heard Haman, but also honored the heroes, Esther and Mordechai. The rashanim were made out of recycled items and filled with rice, beans and pasta. Each class also collected boxes of pasta to participate in the mitzvah of chesed and donated the food to Lakeview’s food pantry.