What Happened in Grades K-2 on Sunday, November 1...

Kindergarten

Did you know that this month is Jewish book month? In the United States and Israel, we are celebrating all kinds of Jewish books, fiction and non-fiction, religious and secular. In class today, we learned about Jewish book month and why books are so important to the Jewish people.

Mrs. Bernstein had us play a fun game so we could learn what kinds of books we all like to read. For example, if she asked us "do you like picture books?" you would skip from one side of the room to the other. This helped prepare us for our hunt for Jewish books around Temple Emanu El!

We talked about how usually we find books in the Library, but we can find them other places as well. We found books in Rabbi Denker's office...

and in Mrs. Milgrom's office...

and in T'filah...

and in Rabbi Roberts' office!

Grade 1

 To begin class, Grade 1 shared all of the fun things we’ve done since we saw each other last week. Most of us got to share our fun stories about Halloween! Afterward, we had a question to answer: Does anyone know of any heroes? Some of our responses were Catwoman, Carebears, Superman, etc. 

Next, we were given today’s lesson through a question: Can regular people be heroes? How? Our answer was yes, of course! Many of us gave the response that our parents were heroes, whether they were in the military, or they just looked out for us. And why can people be heroes? For doing good things! 

During T'filah, Rabbi Denker gave us some information to differentiate between light and darkness. We also talked about the well-known holiday, Chanukah. 

Back in class, we played a fun game to challenge ourselves. We were given verbal examples of real life situations, such as a child baking her grandmother cookies, and from there we had to decide whether the act was G'milut Chasadim, or Tzadakah. Those two things put together make a Jewish hero! 

Lastly, our friend from Israel came into class. His name is Noam, and he introduced himself to us with a fun game with a funny name. It was called Shluffluff. When someone threw you the plane and said "shluffluff" you had to say your name, but if they said your name, you had to say "shlufffluff." Then, Noam answered our questions about Israel. Finally, he taught us what it was like to be a Jewish hero in Israel, which is coincidentally similar to how we can be Jewish heroes in America. 

Grade 2

Today in Grade 2, we reviewed the Ten Plagues, which we learned about last week. Then, we talked about how after the Jewish people were freed, they had to cross Yam Suf (the Sea of Reeds). Our teacher put on some soothing ocean sounds, we shut our eyes, and imagined what it would have been like to be at Yam Suf. We talked about how God parted the sea, and how Moses assisted the Israelites in escaping from Egypt. 

Next, we drew pictures of what we saw in our heads while we were visualizing what it would be like to stand at Yam Suf and traveling through the desert.

During T'filah, Rabbi Denker gave us some information to differentiate between light and darkness. We also talked about the well-known holiday, Chanukah. 

Back in class, we started our next letter of the Alef Bet for our Hebrew lessons. On page 23, we learned about Dalet. Before that, though, we reviewed our other letters to refresh our memories. This is for the parents: ask us how people in Israel would say ‘second grade’! (Answer: Kitah Bet)

To end the day on a fun note, we had art. In art, we learned a little more in-depth about the Israelites leaving Egypt. Then, we got big papers to draw the ten plagues. It was super fun.