4th Grade – MLK weekend – Also, KSBY is tomorrow (Fri)!

Happy MLK weekend! Safe travels to all who are out and about.  I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at our Kabbalat Shabbat B’Yachad tomorrow!

Here’s some cool modern history that I couldn’t cover within the scope of the course this year, so, feel free to explore together and converse about it at home: How were Jews helpful allies during the Civil Rights movement?  (Do your scholars know about Freedom Riders — there were Jewish lawyers who got the Freedom Riders out of jail, specifically so that the Riders could do it again! There were Jews who went to register Black voters, which was extremely dangerous! Etc!)  The real main heroes were the Black Americans, but Jews of all colors were important allies, too.  After all, we’re not free until everyone is free. How can we be allies, today?  But I digress.

We recently learned the Torah story of Rebecca at the Well. Our favorite part was the kindness to animals.

Students chose their own Rebecca-related activites, such as Midrash Math, crafting lovely wedding invitations for our Torah-heroes Isaac and Rebecca, and exploring the differences in how Rebecca is portrayed in various children’s books (one book depicted her as shy and very sweet, another had her rather tough, with veils and a nose-ring. Either way, she’s adventurous enough to travel across the desert, strong enough to haul water for ten thirsty camels, and deeply kind to animals. What’s their interpretation, how do they want their Rebecca to look and sound?)  One class spontaneously created an entire original puppet show of the story.

Students in Hebrew are all doing different activities — some are matching letters and sculpting fruit beads, to begin learning their letters and food vocab in a fun and tactile way.  They’ve also played Uno and Twister, entirely in Hebrew, to learn numbers and colors.  Some are reading the parsha in which Rebecca takes care of the animals and decides to go meet Isaac for the first time.  It’s all great stuff.

For Saturday Holidays class, the students began our Tu B’Shvat unit, exploring the New Year of the Trees.  We’re learning about Israel’s ecosystem, which has scarce water, but lots of clever inventive people!  The scholars have a ton of passion for helping trees and the environment, in our own communities, in Israel, and in the whole world.

For Monday Israel class: we recently began having a guest speaker come in, once every two weeks. His name is Elal, and he’s delightful, coming all the way from Israel to teach us about exciting people there. Keep an eye out for him from time to time.

So, here are some new conversations you might have with the 4th Grade scholars at home, to build on the many things they’ve been thinking about:

• Imagine your own family in the hot desert together, on a green irrigated farm, or on the beach in sunny Israel.  What would that be like?
• Different books sure portrayed Rebecca differently.  That’s called interpretation.  How does your child want their Rebecca to look and sound?
• Saturday: Your children are super creative, and might have a cool new idea for protecting trees and helping the environment.  How can we get the word out?
• Saturday: For an abstract- and politically-minded child: How can we try to stop a large organization from harming the environment? (such as, by protesting, boycotting, making laws against dumping oil into the water, etc.)  (If you and your child call our representatives at the end of this conversation, your child will likely remember it forever.)
• Pirkei Avot says: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” (Which means, it’s not your job to finish this endless job, but you’ve still gotta keep trying.) How does this apply to the endless task of helping animals, or helping the environment?  How can we keep going, even if we start feeling frustrated?

Enjoy!