What Happened in Grades 3-6 on Sunday, September 27...

Grade 3

Grade 3 started off with T'filah in the Sanctuary. Here, we are all standing up for the G'vurot, which is a part of Amidah.

After morning services and HaTikvah, we went back to the classroom and got started with our Judaics learning. In the beginning of class we filled out a sheet of what are favorite things are and what we like to do. Then we shared our answers for two of the questions, so we could get to know each other better.

 

We also created a class Brit, with rules for how we should act so that everyone can learn. We came up with a big list of rules, but narrowed it down to four main rules that will help us stay on track: Be respectful to everyone and everything, Arrive to school prepared and with a positive attitude, Try your best, and Stay safe and have fun. 

During Hebrew, we spent time reviewing the aleph bet. We all got 2-3 cards and the cards. Each card had a Hebrew  letter on it. After we got are cards we were challenged to go through the aleph bet out loud, standing up and reading the letter on our card in turn. It was a fun and active way to review!

Grade 4

We started the morning in T’filah with Grades 3-6. In this picture we are praying for a great week with Cantor. Also during T’filah, the Cantor taught us about what makes a sukkah a sukkah. For example, a sukkah can only have three walls. It can’t have a door, because if it did and we closed the door it would then have four walls.

We all went to Art with Mrs. Schulgasser. We learned about all the different ways that books help us be Jewish. The Jewish people are even called “The People of the Book.” We created books that we turned into a book mobile. Mr. Stone will have us write down the acts of G’milut Chasadim that we do throughout the year so that we can fill the pages of our book mobile.

Welcome to our classroom! It is full of Judaism! During Hebrew, Mr. Stone helped us explore the text book that we’ll be using this year.

In this photo you can see the brit that we created. A brit is a covenant and our brit outlines the rules of our classroom. 

Grade 5

Today during T'filah, in addition to reciting the prayers, we talked about the upcoming holiday, Sukkot, which starts tonight. A sukkah is our temporary home away from home. To be a sukkah, it needs a maximum of three walls and a natural roof (made of leaves, twigs, etc.) with openings to see the sky. The idea being portrayed is that not everything lasts forever. As Cantor Lawrence said, “appreciate every moment for what it is.” We had Kehillah in the social hall today. We were in a shoulder-to-shoulder circle for HaTikvah and then we had Havdallah. Last, we recognized summer and September birthdays before having our snack of water and pretzels. 

Back in class, Grade 5 took attendance in a fun way! Ms. Wineburg called our names, and we responded with ‘ani-poh’, which is Hebrew for ‘I am here.’ Because some of us weren’t able to make it last week, we also shared a little about ourselves. And if we hadn’t made nametags yet, we had the time to do that as well. Last week, we learned rules and did introductions, so we debriefed our rules. Our word of the day is "nachon," which means "okay" or "correct." 

For our lesson today, we learned about the TaNaCH. We counted off by twos and separated between Mr. Chad and Ms. Wineburg, one group in the library and another in the classroom. With Mr. Chad, we read parts of the Haftarah as well as summaries of Torah stories, then made correlations between them. With Ms. Wineburg, we went through what we already know about the Torah, and briefly learned about what we didn’t know. To help learn, we played 20 questions. Students had to guess what person, place, or thing that another student was thinking of, and said thing had to be from the Torah. 

Next we began our Hebrew studies. To do this in a fun way, Ms. Wineburg made us fortune teller outlines, which we cut out, then used with a partner. This helped us name letters of the Alef Bet as well as recognize vowels. 

To end class, we played a game of hangman. Ms. Wineburg gave us a Hebrew word, which we then made the other students try to guess letters of until they made the entire word. Then she would tell us what it meant. 

Grade 6

Today we started off in T’filah. Cantor reminded us of the importance of following along in the siddur so that we can practice our Hebrew as we pray. We also learned about what makes a sukkah a sukkah. For example, the sukkah must be a temporary structure so that we are reminded how nothing, except for God, lasts forever. 

During Kehillah, Cantor led us in HaTikvah, Israel’s national anthem. We also had Havdallah and three of the sixth grade students got to help by carrying the candle, the wine and the spices.

We started our Count Me In curriculum today! The opening activity got us up and moving as we had to find our group based on the names we were given on slips of paper. Then, we worked on a worksheet that helped us explore the different names that people call us, both names we’ve been given and names we’ve earned. 

During Hebrew, we reviewed Hebrew vocabulary for Sukkot. In addition to working on decoding the words, we also worked on matching the Hebrew and English words together.