Tu Bishvat and MLK Day

This week in 5th grade, we wrapped up our last online Hebrew “side by side” lesson. We’ve been briefly assessing students’ progress in order to plan a Hebrew curriculum for the rest of the year. Next week, we’ll start using a great Hebrew primer workbook that combines decoding skills with basic comprehension by putting together small sentences. For students who are working on learning letters and vowels, we also have a primer that will help them gain confidence in letter recognition and decoding. We will continue working in small leveled groups alongside teachers and madrichim.

Additionally, as the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat fell on the same weekend as Martin Luther King Jr. day, we had a conversation on Tuesday about similarities between the two holidays. We read the Jewish folk tale of Honi the Circle Maker who learns the importance of planting trees, even if they won’t bear fruit in his own lifetime. This led into a discussion of legacies, both of Honi and of Dr. King. Students spoke about the community service projects they have done in past years over MLK weekend as well as on Tu Bishvat.