What Happened in Grades 3-6 on Sunday, November 8...

Grade 3

During T’filah today, Cantor Lawrence gave us a fun way of viewing our prayers this morning. We viewed the Shema as a sandwich, in fact, he called it a Shema Sandwich. We followed our prayers with our etzba'ot (fingers). Then, when Cantor told us about this week’s Torah portion, we learned it was about Esau. Our lesson was that brains can overrule brawn depending on the situation. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Back in class we had Kehilah. We had a yummy snack of graham crackers and water. Meanwhile, we talked about our weekends and took attendance. 

In class, we learned about Israel from Noam. We were buzzing with questions about how Israel differs from the United States, where we live. We learned that Noam can only stay in the U.S. for 6 months because he isn’t a U.S. citizen. We also talked a little about the sandstorm that hit Israel recently. 

After learning about Israel from a first-person point of view, we made cards. We could choose to either make one for Israeli soldiers, encouraging them, or we could make letters for the Western Wall. 

 During Hebrew today, we did letter review in small groups. This helped make sure that everyone knows all of the letters that we've learned so far.

Grade 4

We started this morning in T'filah. We prayed to God for a great day and a great week!

The Grade 6 students were in the Social Hall, so we went to the back hallway with the Grade 1 students for Havdallah.

After that we went to our classroom for Judaics...

...We got back into our groups to perform our Torah portion skits...

...that helped us see how our ancestors in the Torah respected and/or honored their parents. 

As a class, we reflected on each sit and what parts showed honor and respect. From these stories we learned how we can more fully honor and respect our parents!

In Hebrew, we payed Hebrew jeopardy to go over basic decoding, shorashim (roots), sofit (final) letters, prayers and holidays.

Grade 5

During T’filah today, Cantor Lawrence gave us a fun way of viewing our prayers this morning. We viewed the Shema as a sandwich, in fact, he called it a Shema Sandwich. We followed our prayers with our etzba'ot (fingers). Then, when Cantor told us about this week’s Torah portion, we learned it was about Esau. Our lesson was that brains can overrule brawn depending on the situation. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Back in class we had Kehilah. We had a yummy snack of graham crackers and water. We also reviewed what we know about Joshua and then talked about where to give the tzedakah our class collects this year.

 

Today Grade 5 had art. We just finished the book of Joshua, so we made a timeline with what we’ve learned. With that, we made collages of Joshua’s journey. 

In addition to learning prayer Hebrew, we're also trying to learn some Modern Hebrew too! So, today we attempted to have conversations with what we’ve learned so far. 

We also spent time working on the G’vurot on page 41 of our workbooks. We interpreted lines of the prayer with partners. 

To wrap up class, our teacher gave us a fun game to play. It was like memory, but with matching Hebrew words we’ve learned so far in our curriculum. 

Grade 6

Today was our Journey Continues program! The goals of the program were to help our students engage in text study that not only modeled what they will do when they study their parshiot (Torah portions) to write their D'vrei Torah, but also helped them think about what it means to become an obligated Jewish adult at 13 years old.

We started the morning with breakfast and a fun matching game mixer that helped us get to know one another better.

Then, we worked in groups, studying Pirkei Avot 5:21, which highlights the different ages at which the Rabbis felt we should achieve different milestones.

After our text study, we unrolled the entire Torah, to see where our individual parshiot are in the scroll. Seeing all of the parshiot connected helped us remember that even though our Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremonies are something that we go through as individuals, we are a part of a larger community who is engaging in the reading of Torah. 

As the Torah was being unrolled, we received our B'nai Mitzvah study materials. Mrs. Milgrom led us in an exploration of our materials, so that we know how to use them to study our parshiot.

Then, while the parents met with the Cantor and Renee Higer to talk about the tutorial process, the students met with a local artist who will be helping them create a wimple with designs based on their Torah portions. Each students' wimple will be used to tie the Torah together on the day of their Bar/Bat Mitzvah.