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

Grade 3

Today when we came in we went to T’filah. The Cantor led services, and we all followed along in our prayer books. Then we talked about words we can make with koof, daled and shin. Cantor talked to us about Kadosh, Holiness. We talked about how we refer to ourselves as a holy people, but that being holy doesn't make us better than others and that all people are made in God's image. 

Next, we had Kehillah in the classroom. We sent all the madrachim outside of the classroom. We wrote and discussed all the nice things are madrachim do for us and how they help out our teacher. Mrs. Milgrom will use our feedback when she writes her end of year thank you notes!

After Kehillah, we played a few different games to review the Hebrew that we've learned.

In Judaics, we wrote about someone or something that is living that is special to us. We wrote about a relationship with this person then we could write about what makes them special to us.

Then we shared with are class the people we wrote about and we wrote it on the board. During our discussion, we explored how special relationships with other people help us connect to God.

Grade 4

During T'filah, Cantor talked to us about Kadosh, Holiness. We talked about how we refer to ourselves as a holy people, but that being holy doesn't make us better than others and that all people are made in God's image. 

In Kehillah, we asked our madrichim to leave and spent a few minutes talking about all of the things that we appreciate about them. Mrs. Milgrom will use our feedback in her end of year thank you notes!

Then, during Judaics, Mr. Stone posted images up around our room that illustrate the different kinds of Lo Aleicha moments that we've talked about. We all shared which ones we found the most interesting and important and why.

Then, we worked individually to identify a problem that we see in the world and talk about how we can begin to work on the program, even if we can't solve it.

During Hebrew, we spent time reviewing the Shabbat evening prayers that we say at home, like the blessing over the candles.

Grade 5

To begin the day, Grade 5 had T'filah with Cantor Lawrence. During this time of prayer, we focused on the Mi Chamochah and choices, such as whether to get a tea or a coffee at Starbucks. We reviewed from last week, when we learned the root letters koof, dalet, and shin. Words we can make with this root are Kadosh, Kiddush, and Kidushah. We focused on Kadosh, which means holy. To be holy, we do mitzvot. Our moral of today was that every choice we make counts toward how holy we are as people, and how our life will commence. We had Kehilah in class, and during our snack, we wrote up ideas of why we liked our madrachim this year. Mrs. Milgrom will use our feedback in her end of year thank you notes!

After snack, we shifted our focus to holidays. Last week we had Yom Hashoah, which is Holocaust remembrance day. We then discussed upcoming holidays, such as Yom HaZikaron, Israeli memorial day, and Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli independence day. We split into two groups who then researched one of the two holidays, and we did a small presentation on what things are specific to these holidays. 

Afterward, our teacher went more in depth about Yom HaZikaron. We watched a video depicting the alarm that goes throughout Israel, which indicates silence. This is an important show of respect for said holiday. 

Next we began planning our own Yom Ha'atzmaut party, which will be our little celebration of the end of the year. We want to make it as authentic as possible, with Israeli treats and marches around the synagogue. 

Last but not least, we had Hebrew. For this, we reviewed all of the prayers we’ve learned so that next week we can make a video that shows all of them off. 

Grade 6

During T'filah, Cantor talked to us about Kadosh, Holiness. We talked about how we refer to ourselves as a holy people, but that being holy doesn't make us better than others and that all people are made in God's image. 

In Art class, Mrs. Schulgasser helped us create self portraits that express our individual Jewish identities and consider who we have been, who we are and who we will be.

In Hebrew, we reviewed different words from the Torah service using Tic Tac Torah. We needed the word in the box correctly in order to claim it as an "x" or an "o."

We also reviewed Haftarah trope and their tunes, focusing on how they appear in the blessings.

We finished with Around the World!

What Happened in Grades 4-6 on Sunday, February 28...

Grade 4

We started our day in T'filah. Cantor welcomed us with the opening prayers and Rabbi was back with us after his sabbatical! Rabbi talked to us about this week’s Torah portion, Vayachel. In Vayachel, the root letters are kaf, hay, and lamed. These combined can spell Kehillah. We talked all about coming together, and how coming together can make us kadosh, or holy.

In our own Kehillah, we sang HaTikvah (Israel's national anthem) and had snack. Mrs. Milgrom also reminded us about the fundraiser at Choolaah on Tuesday. We hope everyone will come out and support our school!

In class, we talked about LaShon HaRa (gossip). This is a continuation of our class last week. After a short review we split up into groups and acted out scenarios of when gossip happens and how we can be an upstander to stop gossip.

In Hebrew, Mr. Stone taught us about how we can use syllables to help us better decode long Hebrew words. When Mrs. Milgrom stopped by, she talked about how sometimes when Hebrew words are very long and especially if they have similar sounds repeated multiple times in the word, we can get a little lost. Practicing our decoding with syllables can help us stay on track!

Mr. Stone designed a fun matching game to help us practice decoding by syllable. Then, we focused on prefixes and suffixes, to important components to syllable work.

Grade 5

To begin the day, Grade 5 had T’filah. Rabbi is back, so he talked to us about this week’s Torah portion, Vayachel. In Vayachel, the root letters are kaf, hay, and lamed. These combined can spell Kehillah. We talked all about coming together, and how coming together can make us kadosh, or holy. Next, we had Kehillah, and we ate graham crackers and drank water. 

Back in class we signed up for our shifts for the Purim carnival. Our booth is going to be bean bag toss, and next week we’ll finish up our super cool poster. Afterwards, we talked about our Jewish Events Timeline, to review what we’ve learned and where what we are learning today goes on the timeline.

Today was all about Amos and Isaiah. We got packets to learn about these two stories, and to help give our classmates a better understanding, we made a quick class lesson to present. A few examples of what we did are news reports, skits, and commercials. Most of us derived from these stories that being positive is key to achieving social justice. 

Last we had Hebrew. During our Hebrew lesson, we continued off what we were doing last week to understand prayers of giving thanks. Then we had the chance to actually write our own prayers to thank G-d for things. Examples of what our prayers were about were freedom, health, and peace. Afterward, we got into small groups to make games to play for remembering the blessings of petition. We will play these games next week.

Grade 6

We were thrilled to have Rabbi back with us in T'filah today after his sabbatical! During services, he taught us about this week's Torah portion, Vayachel. One student asked if the Torah that we read from is the same one that Moshe had. Rabbi explained that we believe that the stories are the same, but that ours has been influenced by the many people who have copied the words and retold the stories over time.

In Kehillah, while we waited for everyone to arrive, Cantor played a game with us where he says a Hebrew word for a body part and we have to find it on our bodies. The first time we did it, we didn't know any of the words, but week by week, we're learning more! Here, we are putting our yadayim (hands) on our rosh (head). 

In class, we worked on coming up with a name for the booth that our class is running at the Purim carnival. We came up with "Fish for Coup" because everyone will be trying to win coupons that they can redeem for fish.

While some people worked on drawing and coloring the poster, others of us prepared for an art project that we'll be doing next week about identity by taking selfies of ourselves.

In Hebrew, we reviewed trope. These are symbols that represent specific sounds when chanting. Both Torah and Haftarah have a set of trope. We color coded the trope so we can remember the difference between the symbols. Mrs. Gabay led us in a repeat after me song to help us learn the sounds.

What Happened in Grades K-2 on Sunday, April 10...

Kindergarten

This morning when we came in we had lots of pictures to color. The pictures all related to Passover because that is the next holiday. We have Passover in two weeks and today we learned so much about it!

Then we went to Kehillah in Kehillah we played a version of Simon says in Hebrew. Then after we played that we said the blessings for snack, for snack we had water and graham crackers. 

After Kehillah we went to T'filah, in T'filah we sang a good morning song in different ways. First we sang it like fish, then we sang it like mice, then we sang it like a bull frog. Then we went around the room saying what we were thankful for.

Then we went back to the classroom and had circle time with Mr. TEE, we went around the room saying hello to everyone. Then everyone shared what they did this week. Everyone showed Kavod while others were sharing. We all waited are turn patiently and listened to everyone.  

Then we played a game relating to Passover, we laid out a bunch of food in the classroom and we had to decide if it was safe to eat for Passover or not. Then when we were all done deciding we went over what was OK to eat and what wasn’t.

Then we went to art; in art we made matzah covers for Passover. We learned how to write matzah and wrote them on are covers and hopefully we can all use them this year for Passover!

Grade 1

We started our day by drawing pictures of what we think of when we hear about Passover while we waited for the rest of our friends to arrive. 

Then, during Circle Time, we reviewed what we remembered about Passover from the story that we read last week.

When we got to Kehillah, Cantor helped us sing Israel's national anthem, HaTikvah.

In services, we talked about how part of what we do in our prayers is say Thank You to God. Cantor also told us a story to help us think about Passover. He had us all imagine that we were playing at school. A new kid suddenly asked to play with us, but he looked strange- he had some white hairs, he had a mole on his nose, et cetra. Those of us who wouldn’t let this stranger play with us were like the Egyptians toward Jews back in the day. The moral of this story was to appreciate and accept everyone, despite physical or non-physical differences. 

Back in our classrooms, we broke up into groups. Our madrichim Rachel and Adam each led a group and Ms. Levy lead one too. At Rachel's station, we read a book called Matzo Ball Soup.  In Ms. Levy's station we used flashcards to review what we can and can't eat during Passover.

In Adam's station we explored one of our questions from last week, which was "if the Israelites didn't build the pyramids, what did they build?" As we researched this question, we also learned more about what life was like for the Israelites living in ancient Egypt.

To end the day, Mrs. Lowe read us three Passover books. The first was Penny and the Four Questions, the other was called Seder with the Animals, and the third was called The Little Red Hen and the Passover Matzo. 

Grade 2

To begin the day, Grade 2 met our substitute teacher. Her name was Mrs. Zaas, and she introduced herself with two interesting facts about her life. We followed suit. After the meet and greet, we drew pictures of a variety of things- Hebrew letters, what we did this weekend, and our favorite things about Passover.

During Kehliah today we ate a snack of graham crackers and water. We then went to T’filah, and there we began as we always do with what we’re thankful for. After everyone had joined us, we talked about the story of Passover, but in a modern way. Our modern way of describing it was imagining being at school during recess and playing. A new kid suddenly asked to play with us, but he looked strange- he had some white hairs, he had a mole on his nose, et cetra. Those of us who wouldn’t let this stranger play with us were like the Egyptians toward Jews back in the day. The moral of this story was to appreciate and accept everyone, despite physical or non-physical differences. 

Back in class, we took a look at a list of G'milut Chasadim (Acts of Loving Kindness)

We then split up into groups to read two different stories from the Torah about G'milut Chasadim. 

We then got to illustrate what we learned from the stories and how we can bring it into our lives.

Lastly, we learned a new letter today! Today's letter was chet. We worked in our workbooks to learn the letter sound and compare it to look alike letters.