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

Grade 3

We started our day with T'filah, followed by Kehillah. In addition to HaTikvah, Havdallah and singing happy birthday to everyone who has an April birthday, Cantor also invited up the Youth Choir to lead us in a repeat after me song. We sang in some really creative ways, including like Super Mario!

Then we went to art we made pyramids. We made pyramids because they remind us of Egypt and in the Passover story the Jews left Egypt. The pyramids we made also can be used as matzah holders for Passover.

First, we cut out the outline of the pyramids. 

Then, we scored the lines so are pyramids could fold.

 

 

Finally, we decorated them and then taped them together so they could hold our matzah.

Back inthe classroom, we learned the difference between pey and fey. They look exactly alike except one has a dot in the middle. We got in to groups and worked in our books. We focused on decoding food vocabulary words that use the letters and vowels we've learned and then used the new words to play a Hebrew game!

 

Grade 4

To begin the day, Grade 4 went to T’filah and reviewed the story of Passover. Along with our weekly prayers, we discussed our favorite parts of Passover and why we uphold certain traditions, like the most important, the Passover seder. Next was Kehillah, where we ate animal crackers and had water. Before that, though, the members of Cantor’s youth choir came up and we sang some fun prayers until the younger grades showed up. Once they did, we sang HaTikvah, and we did our Havdallah service.

Back in class, we had a fun jeopardy review game that Mr. Stone thought up for us. He set the game up while Mrs. Milgrom came in. When she joined the class, she talked to us about pizza, and the exclusive opportunity for fourth grade to win a pizza party! Our upcoming holiday is Passover, and as we all know, we don’t get to eat bread. Therefore, no pizza. The Sunday after Passover ends, we have the chance to win a pizza party. Our task is to have at least half of the students in Grade 4 to fill out a web search with our parents. It will be fun, educational, and easy. 

We continued on to play our jeopardy game. We learned all about vocab and prayers, and it was a fun way to review our curriculum. Our categories were root words, Jewish holidays, suffixes and prefixes of the Hebrew language, prayers, and the important people we've encountered during our studies. 

Last but not least, we talked about love. More specifically, things we love in particular, like sports and animals and family. We talked about how loving things is like loving G-d, as he created everything in His image.

Grade 5

To begin the day, Grade 5 went to T’filah and reviewed the story of Passover. Along with our weekly prayers, we discussed our favorite parts of Passover and why we uphold certain traditions, like the most important, the Passover seder. Next was Kehillah, where we ate animal crackers and had water. Before that, though, the members of Cantor’s youth choir came up and we sang some fun prayers until the younger grades showed up. Once they did, we sang HaTikvah, and we did our Havdallah service.

Once we finished up our snack, Grades 5 and 6 stayed in the Social Hall. In here, we talked about our upcoming retreat. This upcoming weekend, we will be visiting a camp called Koinoia. We began with a meet and greet, socializing between the two grades. Afterward, we talked about Passover as an introduction to what will be in store for us at the fifth and sixth grade retreat.

The first thing that we did was create a brit. This is a behavior agreement that outlines how we will all act while we're together so that everyone feels safe and can have fun. We talk about everything that we need to know to treat everyone correctly and take care of the environment in which we'll be staying. To help bring our brit to life, we had volunteers come up and demonstrate what it looks like when we value our fellow participants and when we devalue them. The demonstration helped us visualize what it means to value everyone's contributions to the group! Then, we did some brainstorming to discuss the difference between being free and being a slave. Beth asked us what being free "looks like, feels like, smells like and tastes like" and then we did the same for being a slave. We created books that illustrated what it would be like to be a slave and how we might think and feel about ourselves and how others might think and feel about us if we were slaves. Then, we illustrated who we really are and what we think and feel about ourselves as free people.

Back in class, we made Thanksgiving brachot posters. Afterward, we filled out a question sheet about the upcoming Jewish holiday, Passover. Finally, we ended with a Hebrew game.

Grade 6

This morning, the fifth and sixth graders joined together for a preview of what we'll be learning on our Retreat.

The first thing that we did was create a brit. This is a behavior agreement that outlines how we will all act while we're together so that everyone feels safe and can have fun. We talk about everything that we need to know to treat everyone correctly and take care of the environment in which we'll be staying.

To help bring our brit to life, we had volunteers come up and demonstrate what it looks like when we value our fellow participants and when we devalue them. The demonstration helped us visualize what it means to value everyone's contributions to the group!

Then, we did some brainstorming to discuss the difference between being free and being a slave. Beth asked us what being free "looks like, feels like, smells like and tastes like" and then we did the same for being a slave.

We created books that illustrated what it would be like to be a slave and how we might think and feel about ourselves and how others might think and feel about us if we were slaves. Then, we illustrated who we really are and what we think and feel about ourselves as free people.

Back in the classroom, we were faced with a dilemma! One of the sixth grade students found a $10 bill on the ground. We weren't sure if the student who found the money should keep the money, if our class should donate the money to tzedakah or if we should try to find the money's rightful owner. Mrs. Milgrom stopped in and told us that the Talmud actually has laws that tell us what to do if we happen to find something that has been lost!

We searched online using our phones to find articles that summarized the Jewish laws of returning lost objects. We took notes and followed the laws to arrive at our conclusion. The end result was that we donated the money to tzedakah.