10/26/10

This week in GAN K/1!

We read and discussed the story of Joseph and his wonderful colored coat - and made our own. We talked Joseph's forgiveness of his brothers and why forgiveness is a mitzvah.
We learned and practiced "nun" and learned a few new words: "ner" is candle and "nin" means "grandchildren". "nehesh" means snake/serpent and we turned our nuns into snakes.
We began discussing miracles "nas" like all of those that occurred in Eygpt for and by Moses.

Each child was responsible for drawing one part of the synagogue: for example, the rabbi, the torah, the Shabbos candles. Then, they attached them to our drawing of an empty synagogue and we discussed why each component is important.

We learned the meaning of the word "tov," or, "good". Joseph was a "tov" man and his brothers were "lo tov" (not good). We talked about why mitzvahs are tov, and what makes a tov Jew, family member and student.

That's all for this week! Enjoy the break!
As always, e-mail me with any questions about the curriculum at: ELubitz@brandeis.edu


-Erica

10/19/10

Today we discussed the story of Jacob and his dream about the ladder. We have one, big ladder now hanging in the room with the class' angels on it.
We learned "dalet," practiced new vocabulary, and did a review of all of our letters so far with a game.

The game:
We have all the letters we've learned so far on cards: lamed, bet, dalet shin, mem, tav, chet.
I say a word or a phrase and they hold up all of the letter sounds they hear.
For example: "shalom" and working in groups, they collect the shin, lamed and mem cards to quickly hold up.
This was great for auditory learning and reinforcing letters and vocabulary. Try it at home with one or two letters! They've retained all of their hebrew alphabet wonderfully so far.

A few vocabulary favorites today were "dov" - the word for bear and teddy bear - ask, "what is a bird in English and a bear in Hebrew?"
"deleg" is flag and "d'vrash" is honey we also learned "d'vorah" for honey bee.
With these vocabulary words, we decorated one, big dalet and they made their own - which are the pictures you'll see on their classwork.
We talked about Israel. We added two things to our map of Israel: the Israeli flag and the Western Wall. We talked about what it means if something is "holy" or "sacred" and other things we treat with respect in Judaism - synagogues, the Torah, talit.
We practiced dalet in our text books.
To premise next week's class, we started the story of Joseph and his amazing coat.

Have a wonderful week! See you next Tuesday!

Erica

This week in K/1!

Hello and welcome to Kindergarten & Grade 1 at ARS! If you have any questions about the topics covered in our class, feel free to e-mail me at ELubitz@Brandeis.edu. 

Remember that Shabbat B'yahad is required for all students Kindergarten - 7th grade. It takes place monthly - come any time starting at 9:15 AM! There will be activities for all ages.

What we've covered until now...

1. Hebrew letters 'shin' and 'bet' 

2. In the spirit of Sukkot, we transformed our 'bet' into a Sukkah and learned about the practices and traditions of Sukkot.

3. Our "Mitzvah Museum" is a growing collection of Mitzvahs - all created by your kids! Each week we contribute more Mitzvahs to the museum as they learn about good deeds, the concept of charity, and observing Jewish law. We've made Mitzvah Fruit to decorate our alphabet Sukkah.

4. We have read "Something from Nothing" and we discuss reoccurring concepts in Jewish folklore: family, tradition and heirlooms and creating things ourselves. We put lots of emphasis on keeping Judaism alive through family.

5. In the spirit of creating, we have read the Creation Story and we often refer back to it. We learned what it means to be created "In G-d's image" and "where do we find G-d?". They are all very intelligent and have been very receptive to all of the concepts we've covered!

We are focusing this week and next week on sharing religious experiences. We are covering "synagogues" - why is it important to worship together? And why some holidays like Simchat Torah are large, group celebrations and other observations like Yom Kippur are more personal. We talk about personal goals and dreams versus group ideas and why we are better at doing some things on our own, and some things together. Of course, Mitzvahs can be shared or done on our own. 

Hebrew letters have been practiced during class so far and we are starting our textbook work Today, Tuesday October 5th. We are keeping the textbooks in our classroom and the students are encouraged to bring their practice work and Hebrew letter crafts home for you! 

Also, while I will not be at back to school night on Tuesday due to a midterm exam at school, free free to reach me via email at elubitz@brandeis.edu with any questions that you might have.

As always, visit www.Ohabei.org for updates and details of all events at Temple Ohabei Shalom!!