What Happened in Grades 5 & 6 on Sunday, December 13...

(Grades 3 & 4 had great days today too, but due to some technical difficulties we don't have blog posts for them.) 

Grade 5

Today Grade 5’s T’filah service was led by a familiar face. Julia Ullman took Cantor Lawrence’s spot today, and we talked about what we’re thankful for in the light of the holiday we’re celebrating, Chanukah. Then we played a little Chanukah trivia. Afterward we went to our classroom to have Kehillah. During Kehillah, we talked about what we’ve gotten for Chanukah while we had a yummy snack of pretzels and water. 

After we had our snack, we had art. During art our discussion was about things that symbolize Chanukah and why. For instance, one of us explained that the chanukiyah represents Chanukah because it is only used on this holiday. Then we went broader and talked about how the symbols of Chanukah can also be symbols of Jewish freedom. Our project today was to make a sheet metal ornament depicting these symbols of freedom.

Back in class, we did some fun review games, but first, we got snacks of M&M cookies, mini doughnuts, and brownie cupcakes - our very own Chanukah party! Our first review game was Bingo, and this game was used to review vocab from the Hebrew prayers we’ve been studying in Hebrew class.

Our next game was Jewish Basketball. We were asked questions about topics we’ve studied over this semester and, if we got the right answer, we shot a basketball for points. In the photo is an example of us working as a team and discussing the answer to a question.

Grade 6

While we're still celebrating Chanukah, our madrichim are already starting to plan for Purim! Some grades are going to try to create booths for the carnival, and today we spent some time brainstorming what kind of booth we might want to do.

For our class Noam, who is here from Israel, came in to do activities with us and he answered any questions we had about the Israeli culture and what he likes to do for fun there compared to what we do in the U.S.  

Noam showed us how he would write his name in Hebrew if he were in Israel.

We got to play charades with Hebrew slang terms and the English translation. We had to act out what the term actually meant and how you would put it in a sentence. Every time we guessed the correct translation, we got a specific amount of points.

Today at the start of Hebrew we reviewed the Hebrew words from the Mi Sheberach and what they mean as we sing them, using the help of our madrichim.

We played Hebrew baseball to practice decoding the prayer. When someone on our team read an entire line on their own correctly, they get to move to the next base. The team with the most runs wins!

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

Grades K-2

Today, kindergarten through second grade got together for a special holiday program. The program was all about tonight’s Jewish holiday, Chanukah. To begin, we had a snack of potato pancakes, or latkes. For this snack, our brachah was borei pri ha'adamah (fruit of the earth) because potatoes come from the ground. 

All of the students split into groups. Once this was done, we went to different stations. At the first station, we made  chanukiyot (plural of chanukiyah). This was a fun art activity for all of us, and in addition, we can use them tonight to begin the first night of Chanukah.

The next station was where we got to play a fun game of dreidel. With all the classic rules, we got into evenly divided groups and played with the assistance of one of our madrachim, Michael, or Mrs. Levy. 

At our last station, we learned all about what makes a chanukiyah different from a menorah. Ask us what the difference is! It should be that the Chanukah is for the eight nights of Hannukah whereas the menorah is for the seven days of the week. Afterward, we chanted the blessing for the candles, so we should know them for tonight. Lastly, we played a fun game called It’s Hannukah. It was similar to candyland, and we had a fun time. 

What Happened in Grades 3-6 on Sunday, November 22

Grade 3

Grades 3-6 started our day in T'filah. Cantor Lawrence led us in prayer and Rabbi Denker told us the story of how Jacob fled the land if Israel for 20 years and when he returned he had to face his brother, with whom he had fought.

In our classroom, during Kehillah, we all shared our plans for Thanksgiving.

After Kehillah, in Judaics, we learned about a Torah portion called Kedoshim. In the portion, God outlines a list of mitzvot that help us act in holy ways. One example is treating people with kindness.

 

After working on our worksheets in small groups, we performed skits that brought to life the scenarios we were discussing.

Then, we created drawings that showed examples of both how we should act according to Parshat Kedoshin and how we should not act.

Grade 4

Grades 3-6 started our day in T'filah. Cantor Lawrence led us in prayer and Rabbi Denker told us the story of how Jacob fled the land if Israel for 20 years and when he returned he had to face his brother, with whom he had fought.

Back in the classroom, during Kehillah, we talked about our family Chanukah traditions.

In Art class, Mrs. Schulgasser taught us about Pop Art and how we could use this form of artistic expression to publicize the mitzvah of Chanukah (persumai mitzvah)

Here is what our pictures looked like at the end!

In Grade  Hebrew we learned the difference between long and short vowels.

Mr. Stone even helped us by getting us active in opening our hands up wide for long and putting them back together for short.

Grade 5

Grade 5 started our morning by re-listening to a song about Devorah the prophetess. Then, we split into groups of four and read midrashim about Devorah...

...Our groups used these midrashim to better understand the story of Devorah and what made her a great leader.

Using these same groups, we created our own midrashim about Devorah in the form of songs. Some people made raps, some made pop style songs and some of us even created dance moves to go along with our songs!

In Hebrew, we worked on decoding the G'vurot with a partner. When our madrich, Jadon, called out one of the lines and words and we read it correctly, we got the chance to try to make a basket!!

Grade 6

This morning our Grade 6 students did an amazing job creating individual wimples for each of their parshiot!

First, the artist stretched the canvas for us to work on.

Then we used water color paints to create our drawings.

Some of us came in with sketches and the artist showed us how we could transfer those into the silk.