What Happened in Grades K-2 on Sunday, April 26...

Kindergarten

Today Max came in with a new stuffed animal of a frog, or sephardea in Hebrew. We played games like Sephardea in the Middle with it.

Then, we had a Havdallah service where we smelled a spice box. We also celebrated everybody who’s birthday is in April, by singing Happy Birthday in Hebrew.

Then we worked on art project that focused on the Ten Commandments. These important rules are essential to how we love our neighbors as ourselves, which is our theme this year.

We traced our hands and decorated them, and wrote one commandment on each finger. These important rules are essential to how we love our neighbors as ourselves, which is our theme this year.

Grade 1

There was something different in Grade 1 today - we were missing our Documentor and our madrichim! Due to a NFTY event, many of our teens were away having fun with their friends. While we don't have pictures, here is what we did today...

During Circle Time this morning, we had to do a lot of counting - Jonah brought in  his Tzedakah box and it was FULL of money! After counting our Tzedakah, Ms. Levy asked us to close oureyes and think about a time when we felt angry at someone for something that person did, jealous of someone who got some what we wanted, or sad because someone hurt our feelings. We talked about how we acted when it happened and if there was something that we could have done better.

After T'filah and Kehillah, we read a story about Joseph.  After reading the story once, Ms. Levy told us that she was going to read it again, but asked us to think about what the people in the story could have done in a better, kinder way. When she read the story a second time, we raised our hands when we heard something that someone did that wasn't nice. Afterwards, we worked in small groups to take on a part of the story and act out how people could have done things in a better, kinder way.

Grade 2

Lots of things were different in Grade e today - we had a substitute, Mrs. Henry, we were missing our Documentor and two of our madrichim were gone! Due to a NFTY event, many of our teens were away having fun with their friends. While we don't have pictures, here is what we did today...

After Mrs. Milgrom came in to introduce our substitute teacher, Mrs. Henry to our class, we began our day with learning about G'milut Chasadim. Mrs. Henry divided us up into three small groups. Each group worked at a station where we read a story from the Torah. After reading the story, we had to find all of the acts of G'milut Chasadim that were in the story. 

            

After each group got to visit each station, we created a giant list, comparing all of the different acts of G'milut Chasadim in the Torah stories we read. Mrs. Henry asked us if we've ever performed any of these acts in our lives and we talked about all of the opportunities that we have each day to perform acts of G'milut Chasadim.    

Then, we had Art. Mrs. Schulgasser did a sketch book activity with us where we got to explore different areas of the synagogue and sketch what we saw in each area. It helped us learn about our building in a whole new way!

What Happened in Grades 3-6 on Sunday, April 19...

Grade 3

Did you know that Israel's Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) is coming up? In Art, we made pictures of the state of Israel using prayers and Hebrew words that relate to Israel.

We each tried different color schemes and prayers to make different artistic designs.

Then, back in the classroom, we took got to play a fun Hebrew review game. Mrs. Zaas threw us a ball with Hebrew vowels on it and we had to pair the vowel that our thumb landed on with a letter to make short syllable words.

Our day culminated with a trivia review game about Israel.

Grade 4

Today was a great day in 4^th grade! The day began T’filah and then Kehillah in our classrooms. Mrs. Abrams was not here today, so we had an amazing substitute, former teacher, Ari Feinberg! We began speaking about Israel’s Independence Day, Yom Ha'atzmaut. We listened to a recording of Israel’s national anthem, HaTikvah being played by an orchestra when Israel was declared a country in 1948. 

Next we read a script about the time then Abraham stood up to God when God wanted to destroy a city and Abraham told God he shouldn't. Then, the class split into two groups and were given a side. One side being that Abraham was right to stand up to God and one side that Abraham shouldn't have stood up to God. 

In Mr. Stone’s class we wrapped up our unit on honoring our mothers and fathers. Then, we talked about befriending the lonely. Then, we read things Boaz did to befriend Naomi and we drew parallels to our own lives, such as including people or saying hello.

 

 After our core class, we went to Hebrew with Mr. Stone. In Hebrew, we learned about the Kiddush- the blessing over wine/grape juice. We learned all about the blessing and why we say it first on Shabbat, We read through the prayer and learned two new roots. We learned a lot in Hebrew today! 

Grade 5

During T'filah today, Rabbi told us all about how Jews didn't have their own country in the past. That’s why Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, is so important. 

Grade 5 had Kehillah in the classroom today. We sang HaTikvah, then we had a snack of animal crackers and water. Our madrichim left the room and we talked about the good things about them, such as what we liked and what they did well with us. We also did the same for Mrs. Shulgasser, our Art teacher. Mrs. Milgrom will use the nice things we said in her end of year notes to our teachers!

In Mrs. Zamir’s class, we talked about curses. More specifically, giving/receiving curses. We had a Philosophical Inquiry session during which we discussed the quote from Torah, "bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you."

 

With Miss Silverstein, we read the story of Devorah. After discussing and coming up with questions about what we were most interested in, we wrote our own stories as a way of answering these questions. These stories are called midrashim 

In Hebrew, we reviewed the Amidah, to see how much we remember from what we've learned over the course of the year. Each station helped us uncover a different part of the Amidah from past lessons.

Grade 6

The sixth graders began their day after services by sharing how helpful their madrachim have been all year. Mrs. Milgrom will use our feedback in her thank you notes at the end of the year!

The theme of Mrs. Potash’s class today was the protection of animals. She wrote “tzaar baalei chayim” on the board which translates to “compassion towards all living creatures." 

We studied a text that taught us that the suffering of animals is equal to the suffering of humans. The class discussed why our pets and all other animals are important to us and why we should always care for them, under any circumstance. 

 

In Mr. Solomon’s class, Molly led the class in our weekly Hebrew warm up. This helps the students learn simple commands like stand, sit, run, walk and jump.

Next, we looked at a chart that represents each of the seven days and weeks of Omer called “Sefirot HaOmer.” Omer is the counting down of the 50 days between Pesach and Shavuot. This week was the week of Tiferet (beauty, compassion and harmony).

What Happened in Grades K-2 on Sunday, April 12...

Kindergarten

Ever day in Kehillah, we sing HaTikvah, Israel's national anthem. Did you know that the next holiday we'll be celebrating is Yom Ha'atzmaut - Israel's Independence Day?

Back in the classroom, during Circle Time, we all got to share something special about Pesach and Spring Break.

Because Yom Ha'atzmaut is right around the corner, we read a story about all of the things that you can do and see in Israel.

Then we made party hats decorated with Jewish stars to help celebrate Israel's birthday!

We even got to play freeze dance using Israeli music!

Grade 1

We had a great first day back! We started the day by sharing something exciting that happened to us that pertained to Pesach. Then, we went to Kehillah, followed by T’filah. 

When we got back to the classroom, we read all about Noah and his Ark. After the story, we played charades. A student would pick a random piece of paper and act out the animal for everyone to guess. After everyone figured out what animal we were, we would go through how Noah could make that animal comfortable on the Ark. For example, when someone acted out a giraffe, we decided that to keep the giraffe happy and comfortable we would give him an area with a tall ceiling, leaves to eat and keep him away from the lions. 

After our game of charades we went to art with Mrs. Schulgasser. Staying on the theme of Noah’s Ark, we decided to design our own arks. We were given a template and could add layers, draw in Noah and his family and draw in animals. It was a lot of fun to make our own arks. It was a great day and we are so happy to be back! 

Lastly, Grade 1 is excited to be participating in Mitzvah Day this year! Our grade is responsible for bringing in new toothbrushes and toothpaste for the City Mission's Hope Totes.

Grade 2

We began our day this morning with a discussion about G'milut Chasadim. These are Acts of Loving Kindness. Miss Evans told us a little bit about her meeting this morning with the other teachers that had made her think of a question: “What is the difference between tzedakah and Acts of Loving Kindness?” The answer is, when you give tzedakah, you give it because it’s fulfilling a mitzvah (something that God obligates us to do). Mitzvot are like rules, you need to do them, whereas G’milut Chasadim are good things that we do to make others feel better (which makes us feel good too!). 

Next, we talked about the general categories of G'milut Chasadim. We got into groups and rotated through stations, looking at examples of these categories. In our small groups, we came up with solutions to fix the problems in the picture.

During Kehillah, while we ate our snack, all of the teachers left and, as a class, we chose our favorite things about Miss Evans. 

Back in class, we had our Alef Bet review session. Some of us have finished our workbooks and some of us haven't, so we split into two groups and Ms. Evans worked with one while the madrichim worked with the other. 

At the end of they day, we had Library. We started by reading a book called Shavuot. It was all about Shavuot and how people have celebrated Shavuot over time. We also read Sammy Spider’s First Shavuot, and we learned a cool new recipe for the holiday. When we finished reading, we got to choose books to take home.