What Happened in Grades 3-6 on Sunday, December 7...

Grade 3

 

Today, we had Kehillah in the classrooms. Mrs. Gabay asked a few of us to come up and help lead the brachot (blessings) over our snack.

In Mrs. Gabay’s class, we explored the story of Noach (Noah). We raised questions about the text that we found interesting and hope to discuss with our peers.

Then, in Mrs. Zaas’ class, we talked about Tzedakah and charity. We got to see how many bottle tabs the grade above us collected for the Ronald McDonald house, and we plan to collect even more this year.

Back in Mrs. Zaas’ class, we discussed Acts of Loving Kindness that we do for each other, and things we could do as a community to help those in need.

As it is important to bring our learning to life, we talked about how on Tuesday we are going to decorate cookies to donate to JFSA. Our class decided that we should decorate the cookies with Chanukah themes.

Mrs. Zaas taught us what the four letters on the dreidel are, and how they mean, “A great miracle happened there.” In Israel however, the last letter is different, so it means, “A great means a great miracle happened here,” because the story of Chanukah happened in Israel.

Grade 4

We had a great day today in fourth grade! First we had T’filah and after we had Kehillah in our classroom because of a special program that the first graders were having in the Social Hall.

During Kehillah we had the option of signing up for PJ Our Way. This is a new program through the Jewish Federation of Cleveland that sends free Jewish books to kids ages 8-11 once a month. We are very excited to receive a book of our choice once a month!

After signing up for PJ Our Way, we went to art with Mrs. Schulgasser. Mrs. Schulgasser talked to us about oil lamps and how we could make our own! We rolled clay into balls, formed it into a little pot and put a wick into it. When they are all dry and ready (pun intended!) we can take them home, fill them with olive oil and have our very own oil lamps.

After art, we went with Mr. Stone to Hebrew. In Hebrew we reviewed Sh’ma and V'ahavtah. After, we got to play Hebrew hangman! It was a lot of fun. Lastly, at the end of the day, we got Chanukah candles and dreidels. We are so excited for the Retreat next week. Just remember, no class for students in Grades 3 & 4 the Sunday following the Retreat.

Grade 5

During T'filah today, we discussed the upcoming holiday, Chanukah. We learned about miracles, how there are three types of them, and how a miracle was portrayed in the story of Chanukah. 

We had Kehillah in our classrooms, but were still able to sing HaTikvah! We also had the option of signing up for PJ Our Way. This is a new program through the Jewish Federation of Cleveland that sends free Jewish books to kids ages 8-11 once a month. We are very excited to receive a book of our choice once a month!

In Mrs. Zamir’s class, we began by playing a game. The object was to count to ten with each of us saying one number. The trick was that we couldn't decide ahead of time who was going to say which number, so we had to read each other's body language and be aware of those around us. This activity will help us as we delve into our Philosophical Inquiry discussions, which mirror those discussions the Rabbis had two thousand years ago!

Last week, we talked about blessings. Today's discussions was about curses! We talked about how there are good curses and bad curses, and what we’ve been cursed with during our lives. 

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In Ms. Silverstein's class we became prophets. We read articles with situations on them, then we had to figure out what we would do to solve whatever the problem was

Did you know that different movements in Judaism say some prayers slightly different? We learned about this while studying the G'vurot in Hebrew with Mrs. Zamir. In the G'vurot, some congregation say "gives life to all" and some say "gives life to the dead." We talked about how these two phrases are different and what we think the prayer should say.

Grade 6

While practicing our everyday Hebrew phrases to start off Mr. Solomon’s class, Emma had the opportunity to show off her skills. In this picture, Mr. Solomon was telling Emma to spin using Hebrew! 

As our curriculum is focusing on the Torah service, we worked today in class on better understanding how to show Kavod while in T'filah. Some of the ideas were about the importance of using our siddurim and showing respect to the clergy.

As it turned out, our class had a lot of questions about Rabbi Denker's sermon from T'filah. While it wasn't a part of our originally planned lesson, Mr. Solomon took the time to answer our questions about the miracles of Chanukah.

Ms. Killam wasn't hear today because last night she became Mrs. Potash! In her class, our substitute teacher,  Mrs. Barasch, had us take a survey on items that we think we may find if we were to visit Israel. The state of Israel actually has everything listed on the survey!