Seventh Grade

We were so grateful on Thursday to welcome so many families this week! During Tikkun Olam class, Lori Chajet and Leslie Lewin organized an all-star team of parents who dedicated their time to facilitate amazing sessions with our kids guiding them through the process of deciding collectively where to donate the $300 allocated from the 7th grade family fund. Special thanks to: Joanna Pressman, Amy Rutkin, Nick Lewin, Debbie Brukman, Ben Wides, and Lori Chajet for leading sessions! We also had a great family session

Our seventh graders had their last day of trimester 2 electives tonight. For the next few weeks, we’ll be doing Moving Traditions lessons with the students (and with families on February 27! Save the date!)  Speaking of Moving Traditions, I have been in touch with the program and shared some of the feedback that I’ve heard from families. If you or your child has feedback on that curriculum, please let me know and I will pass it along. (We do not write those lessons but are executing lessons that were planned by the Moving Traditions organization.)

Seventh grade families had their first Moving Traditions Family Session of the year this week. (Thanks to all of the families who joined!) During the session, kids learned about what their parents lives were like when they were 12 years old and had a chance to share some of their own fears, questions and concerns about being adolescents and parents learned about some of the pressures and anxieties their children are thinking about.

The new year has brought with it some grave concerns about anti-Semitism in our country and escalated tensions in our world, and at moments like this, I am reminded of Rabbi Tarfon’s words from Pirkei Avot: You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.  I am so proud of our seventh graders who have been engaging in hard work during Tikkun Olam class here at Yachad learning about various issues facing their generation and gearing up to do something about it.

Hi families!

Hope you all are having a terrific holiday season and gearing up for a happy new year! Last week at Yachad, the 7th graders participated in a special Hanukkah celebration after their regular Tikkun Olam and elective classes. The students chose one of several fun holiday options including Hanukkah-themed Charades, Kahoot, and Escape the Room (the kids in the picture featured managed to “escape” – aka find all of the candles hidden in the room to fill the menorah – with only seconds left!)

A couple of announcements as we head into the holidays….

Hi families!

There’s no 7th grade Yachad this week due to the holiday, but I do have some announcements for you. First of all, the students started their Tikkun Olam class last week and will start the second trimester of electives next Thursday.

Tonight was our first Moving Traditions lesson, in which our seventh graders explored “teen stuff” like finding balance, building community and sharing what is stressful and exciting about becoming a teenager. The students participated in a series of teambuilders (including the one pictured here) to practice physically finding balance before we launched into a discussion about emotionally finding balance during adolescence. We will have another Moving Traditions lesson next week, and then when we resume after Thanksgiving, we’ll launch into the second trimester of electives. Some important announcements:

Today was our last day of Trimester 1 electives! The kids had a great first trimester and lots of adventures, including exploring 5000 year-old Israeli architecture, discussing midrash about Adam & Eve and Jonah, practicing good teamwork while playing frisbee or soccer, cooking Israeli treats, learning about key historical moments in the Holocaust, engaging in conversations about identity, and much, much more.   In addition,

Hey everyone!

The 7th graders had an AMAZING night this week during their elective block.  In Arts & Crafts class, there was a guest speaker (our teacher Leora’s dad) who brought in Israeli artifacts that were literally thousands of years old and had the kids use them as models as they worked on their own clay sculptures. In Judaism & Sports, the kids learned about the current conflict between the NBA and China before and shared their thoughts on what they think is the ethical thing for the NBA to do before shooting some hoops in the gym. In Torah Studies, the kids thought they knew the story of Adam & Eve, but they quickly realized that a close reading of the text leaves one with many interesting questions and takeaways.

Hello families,

The seventh grade electives are going really well! To give a couple of details, this past week, the Jewish Cooking class had a Candy Sukkah building contest (think gingerbread house, but with a sukkah instead!), the Jewish Arts & Crafts class made mezuzahs out of clay, the Judaism & Sports class self-refereed an ultimate frisbee game after discussing the ethics of self-refereeing, the Torah Study class discussed why Jonah ran away and what was the deal with the big fish, the Holocaust Studies class arranged a timeline of key historical dates leading up to the Holocaust, and the Rosh Chodesh girls discussion group continued their conversation around identity.

Hope you all had a meaningful High Holiday season! The last two weeks have been really exciting for 7th graders, now that we have officially launched our electives. This past week, our students were learning how to make Israeli hummus, how to knit (and how knitting shows up in Torah), how Judaism connects to the ethics of sports, how there’s more to the story of Judah than meets the eye, how the Holocaust has affected their classmates’ families, and how to engage in Rosh Chodesh girls’ discussion groups.

This week, in their last “regular” Jewish Studies class for awhile, the 7th graders prepped for the high holidays by discussing one of the most challenging texts read during the days of awe: the binding of Isaac. The students acted out the scene and then worked in chevruta (pairs) to analyze the original text before engaging in a classwide debate about whether Abraham passed God’s test.

Hi families!

Our second week of Yachad was terrific. In our first class, we discussed a theme that was perhaps close the hearts of our seventh graders: to what extent do we have a choice to be Jewish? Students looked at passages of Torah and Talmud to evaluate whether Moses had a choice at the burning bush and whether the Jewish people had a choice at Mt. Sinai. During our Tefillah time, students recited the blessing and Abel volunteered to sound the shofar in front of the whole grade (and he did a great job!)

During our second class, we talked about teens around the world who have made a difference, and many of our Yachad students were especially inspired by Greta Thunberg (and some of them even said they are participating in the Climate Strike this Friday!) As I mentioned in last week’s post, all of the seventh graders will be completing a community service project this year (that we are fondly calling Tikkun Olam-A-Thon) as part of the preparation for their B’Nei Mitzvah.

On Thursday May 9th, the 7th grade students showcased their mitzvah projects at our first annual 7th Grade Mitzvah Fair.