What Happened in Grades K-2 on Sunday, April 27...

Kindergarten

Today in Circle Time, we talked about one of our most favorite things - birthdays! Did you know that Israel is having a birthday soon?

Before we could learn too much more, we went to Kehillah, where we got to participate in Havdallah. Here, one of the Grade 6 students is passing around the spice box for all of us to smell. 

Then we joined together for prayer in T'filah. 

Back in the classroom, we got to learn more about Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day. This year, Yom Ha'atzmaut will begin on Sunday evening, May 4 and end on Monday evening May 5. Mrs. Bernstein asked us to draw pictures about our favorite part of birthdays.

When we finished our pictures, we got to try out a Yom Ha'atzmaut word search.

We ended our day back in Circle Time, talking about all of the things that we learned about Israel's birthday today. There are great books in our TEE library if you'd like to learn more about Yom Ha'atzmaut!

Grade 1

To begin our day, Ms. Levy asked us to close our eyes and think about a time when we were really angry.

We then took the image in our head and drew it on our paper. Ms. Levy told us to put these aside and that we'd come back to them after Kehillah and T'filah.

During Kehillah, we got to celebrate Havdallah.

Then we prayed together in T'filah.

When we got back to the classroom, Ms. Levy read us a story about Joseph and his brothers. Joseph had eleven brothers. He told them about a dream that he had. In Joseph's dream the brothers were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly Joseph's sheaf rose and stood upright, while his brothers' sheaves gathered around his and bowed down to it. This dream did not make his brothers happy. They were angry, just like we were in our pictures! Joseph had another dream too. In his second dream, the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to him. This dream made his brothers even more mad. The brothers became so mad at Joseph that they sold him into slavery. After reading the story we talked about how the brothers could have reacted differently, even though they were mad and how we can react to situations that make us mad. 

Grade 2

Second Grade had an awesome day!! In Kehillah, we celebrated Havdallah together.

Then we joined together in prayer for T'filah.

In class, we continued our Israel Map art projects from last week. We added three new cities and are excited to celebrate Israel's birthday - Yom Ha'atzmaut! Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, will begin on Sunday, evening May 4 and end on Monday evening, May 5.

After working on our maps, Mrs. Rosenblum read us a story two children and a cat. One of the children in the story was Jewish and one was Muslim. Both of the children think that the cat is theirs and they are fighting over the cat. Then, one day, the Jewish child and the Muslim child find the cat in the rain. Both children want to rescue the cat, but the cat runs away. When they find the cat, they see that the cat has kittens. The story taught us that working together to reach compromise can mean that there is enough joy to go around for everyone.

What Happened in Grades 3-6 on Sunday, April 13...

Grade 3

Today in Mrs. Gabay's class, we used Philosophical Inquiry to explore the story of Pesach. It was fun to raise philosophical questions about the Haggadah text and use our inquiry skills to discover new insights into the holiday.

In Mrs. Zaas' class, we talked about how caring can be contagious. When we see other people perform G'milut Chasadim (Acts of Loving Kindness), we are more likely to do so as well. This also means that when we perform G'milut Chasadim, we are helping to inspire others to do so too!

Bringing our lesson to life, the Grade 3 students decided that they would like to collect pop tops for Ronald McDonald House. Mrs. Milgrom spoke with them about how we run collections at TEE and asked the class to spend some time researching how we get the pop tops to a Ronald McDonald House while we are on Pesach break.

In Hebrew, we reviewed the Four Questions. We also used plastic frogs to help us during Hebrew Through Movement, which was silly and fun!

Grade 4

In Mr. Feinberg's Judaic's class, we continued to look at the Torah through our practice of Philosophical Inquiry. We read Ki Tavo, one of the parshiot (Torah portions) that deals with God's laws for the Israelites as they cross over the Jordan River and into the land of Israel.

Mrs. Abrams read us a story about immigration and how many Jews came to America from Russia. We learned that these Jews were called Refusniks, because Russia often refused to give them visas to leave the country. American Jews worked hard to help these Russian Jews leave Russia, so that they could have more freedom in the United States.

Mrs. Abrams asked us what we would take with us if we had to leave our home like the Refusniks. 

We "filled our suitcases" with our ideas. It was interesting to see the different things that everyone wanted to bring with them!

Mr. Feinberg showed us a short movie about Passover called Bubba's Boarding School. After the film, we practiced the Four Questions, so we are ready go to for Monday night!

Grade 5

In Kehillah, Mrs. Milgrom asked the teachers to leave the room, so that we could work with our madrichim on a collection of our favorite things about our teachers. Mrs. Milgrom will include our thoughts in her end of year Thank You Notes. It was great to be able to give some positive feedback to our teachers who we know work really hard to prepare for our time together.

In Hebrew, we practiced the Four Questions, so that we are ready to go for each of our sedarim on Monday night! 

With Ms. Gonzalez, we baked kosher for Pesach brownies. Not only was it a lot of fun, but they brownies were delicious, which surprised some of us who couldn't imagine a tasty kosher for Pesach dessert!

Grade 6

First, with Mrs. Schulgaser, we talked about the ten plagues of Passover. We discussed different interpretations of them, including modern and humorous ones. We then created our own Afikoman covers using markers to illustrate our own thoughts about the ten plagues.

Next, we went into the sanctuary with Mr. Solomon and Ms. Killum to discuss the different steps of the Seder. We were then split into two teams and each given five parts of the storytelling part of the Seder that we presented to the class by reading, singing, and performing skits. We had a great time, and filled up our marble jars so that we can have a treat during our next class.

What Happened in Grades K-2 on Sunday, April 6...

Kindergarten

Today we learned about the story of the upcoming holiday of Passover! Mrs. Bernstein told us the story of Moses in Egypt.

Then after T'filah we came back to the classroom to find that there was a lot of food in the table. Some of the things were fruit snacks, matzah, pasta, and fruits.

We wrote whether we thought each food was kosher for Passover or not.

At the end of class, we got to eat the food, what a yummy class!

Grade 1

First grade had a very exciting day that was all about Passover! First, Ms. Levy read us a picture book about the story of Pesach. 

We learned all about the 10 plagues, the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, and about how God, through Moses, freed the Israelites.

After our story, we spoke about being free and also the importance of freedom. We made sure to point out that freedom doesn't mean we can do whatever we want, and we still need to take responsibility when we hurt others. We spoke about certain freedoms at home such as choosing what toy we want to play with. Then, Ms. Levy gave us the freedom to choose what we wanted to draw. 

We got to illustrate ourselves in either the Passover story or at a seder with our family. We also had the choice for our picture to be silly, interesting, colorful or plain. 

After our project we had library! Ms. Rosenthal came to our classroom to read us a story. This one was about Passover too, but was about a family seder. After the story, we walked to the library to check out books to take home. It was a great day!

Grade 2

Grade 2 started their day off with some awesome news; they were going to learn about the last letter of the Alef Bet! 

So they got to work straight away, opening up their workbooks to page 91, and they practiced with vowels along with the letter tzadee.

Next, the second grade class went to Kehillah and had a great snack of goldfish and water after they said all of their prayers.

The class went to T'filah where they did their normal prayers. Today, they learned about Passover and all of the plagues!

When they got back to the classroom, the second graders had a fun time drawing Israel and learning about the culture of the cities as well as how to pronounce names correctly.

Finally, they played a game of tic-tac-toe where they could show off all the words they’d learned over the course of this year at Hebrew school! Everyone was a winner, because everyone knew all of the words!