Oct 30th, Beginning Your Child's Jewish Journey: Consecration Class 2017

This morning we had a very special program for our first grade families. We gathered together and discussed Consecration, which will be a very special day for our friends in February!

We met for breakfast, and did several special projects including decorating our own Kippot! We also received instructions for making our own Torah cover.

Each family was assigned a square of a special banner that we use to represent our whole class. It was great to see all of our families working together on something so special.

5th Grade - 4/30/2017

Today during T'filah, Cantor Rick told us that in Torah, we see in this week's torah portion how we forgive ourselves. The way that Aaron did this was by using goats. He had two- for both, he would place all of the sins for the community on it. One had a red ribbon tied on it, and it was sent into a wasteland. The objective was for Azazel to eat that goat. The second was given to G-d as a burnt offering. We then move into a list of instructions telling us what we should do to have a community of individuals. The ultimate goal is to have a community of special people. Cantor then told us that through the actions that we do, we can make ourselves into people that are Kadosh, or special. When we could no longer offer sacrifices, we started to do T'filah, or worship. Our actions give us our state of holiness and individuality. 

 

 

In class, we had Kehilah. Mrs. Zamir told us that today we have art. Our last day, we'll be giving 3 minute presentations. We don't have Hebrew school on Tuesday because it's Yom Ha'atzmaut. The 9th is our last Tuesday and the 21st is our last day. Then we went to art. Today, we made Mandalas. Over the year, we've learned about Judaism and we've reaffirmed things about our Jewish selves with the new information. For our project today, we had to think of a list of 3 to 4 things that we think represent our Jewish selves. Mrs. Schulgaser told us we'd be using a circle for our Mandalas- they represent a cycle. Many things in life have cycles. The word for whole in Hebrew is Shalem. She told us to think about what's at the center of our Jewishness. For our project, we had layers; protective layers and layers to reach out to others. 

Once we returned from art, we had Hebrew. We passed our Hebrew books out, then turned to page 67. We did a few word matching exercises, then Mrs. Zamir wrote some words on the board, all of which we had to search for in the Kidush. The words were holy, respect/heavy, bless, and rule/king. 

1st, 2nd & 3rd grade - April 23rd, 2017

Kindergarten - 

To start our day, the kindergarten class drew pictures. 

Afterward, we got into circle time and we welcomed everyone to the circle and to class with a song. Next, we shared what we plan on doing once Sunday school ends. 

After that, we went to the atrium for Kehilah. The 6th graders helped with Havdalah, and our snack today was goldfish and water. 

1st -

To begin class today, we got in a circle on the carpet. Our teacher went through what these last few weeks of Sunday school are going to be like: we will be presenting our poster. We were told we would be going to Kenisha, T'filah, then we'll stay in the sanctuary to make a skit with first and second grade. 

Next we had Kehilah. The 6th graders helped lead Havdalah. Our snack was goldfish and water. 

2nd - 

To begin class, we all got our workbooks and a pencil. Our task was to finish Lesson 3. This lesson was about asking G-d for help. Before we ask G-d for help, we have to know what things G-d can help us with. An example is responsibility: getting a good grade on a test after studying. 

Grade 5 - Sunday, April 9th, 2017

 Pesach is coming, and most of us will be having a Seder tomorrow night. The Seder is to tell the story of Exodus and eat matzah, but it's also a time of remeberance, mitzvah-doing, praying, and learning. If there was no pesach, none of us would be here. We'd still be lower class in Egypt. The fact that we get to talk about the freedom we have because of it. Each of us is responsible for the continuation of Jewish life, to practice and pass down what the Exodus gave us to make us who we are today.


During Kehilah today, we had havdalah. A couple of the sixth graders helped us by going around the circle with the candle, spices and wine. Afterward, we were all given a paper with the four questions. As a group, we chanted them in preparation for tomorrow's Seder. Our snack was goldfish and water.


Back in class, we had two guest speakers from our junior youth group. They are encouraging us to run for the youth group office, which we will have the opportunity to be in next year. As we collected tzedakah, we were given information about a junior youth group sponsored gaga tournament.


Afterward, we watched a video by Bible Raps. It was called "The Days of 10 Plagues." We were told rap has a rhyme on every 4th word. We were given a paper with the lyrics on it to follow along.


With this in mind, we were given the task to make our own rap. With 1-2-3-rhyme as our basis, we were partnered up and given one of the ten plagues to base our part of the rap on.


When some of our classmates went to parent-child, Cantor came into our class. We got to share our raps with him, and he learned a new way to tell stories- he was very impressed with us.


After a little bathroom break, we shared our raps in front of the class.


Last, we practiced the four questions. Afterward, we watched a funny video about them.

Purim Luau!

This year our luau-themed Purim Carnival was a huge success! Thank you so much to all of the volunteers who helped donate time and energy (and cake!) to this event. We hope you had a good time, we sure did!

February 26th 2017 1st Grade

As we do every week, we talk about what we are thankful for in the week with the cantor. The rabbi tells us that this weeks torah portion is bout going up. We learn the world (mishkan), which is a temporary temple for the Jews years ago. We think about what it would need to be made of and come up with sticks, cloth for the roof, nails, gold, tools and decorations. They took these ordinary things and made it more special with (Truma) in the house of worship. We think about the things that we do in our everyday lives that we can make a mitzvah, that will make it more special.

Today we have library, and we listen to a book about Shabbat. We talk about when it starts ,when it ends and what we do during it. In the book they clean the candlesticks, pour the wine,make challah, set the table, light the candles, bless the candles, wash their hands, and finally get to eat after blessing all of the food. We learn that to close out Shabbat, we do havdalah. We get to play games and pick out a book to take home today too!

The cantor comes in so that we can discuss what we learned. We do the things we do on Shabbat to make it more special and steerage it from other days of the week. He then tells us that Purim is coming up, and we talk about what we do, like we give gifts and give to those in need. We also get to dress up and make homentashins along with many other things.
Miss Levy reads us a book about queen Esther.