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.