What's Jewish about Butterflies?

As the Director and Head Teacher of a Jewish Early Learning Center, much of my curriculum is based on Maxine Segal's book "Jewish Everyday: The Complete Handbook For Early Childhood Teachers". Now she and Deborah L. Schein have provided another incredible resource for Jewish educators with "What's Jewish about Butterflies?". This phenomenal book provides 36 lesson plans on how to incorporate Judaic learning and values into everything from apples and cookies to rocket ships and teddy bears! This is done with the use of songs and poems, blessings, books, Hebrew vocuabulary, projects, and more! Weaving knowledge about Israel throughout the lesson plans also plays a big part in this very special book. Every page is filled with developmentally appropriate activities that are easy to read, telling teachers everything they need to know to create meaningful experiences for young students. There are also resource lists complete with websites, music, and even a glossary explaining the Jewish concepts found within this book. I can say that this book should be on every Jewish educator's bookshelf, except that mine will never make it to the bookshelf! This book moves with me from my house, to my desk at school, to my classroom, and back home again! I am also using this book as a resource to communicate ideas to my parents so they can extend these experiences at home. This way our young students are provided with rich, Jewish experiences both at home and at school. It doesn't get any better than that! Thank you to the authors for creating exactly the kind of "user friendly" resource that busy, but dedicated Jewish early childhood educators needed and can really use!