Fourth Grade

Yes, another post from 4th Grade – there’s just so much going on.

Did you know, our own Morah Rose has put out an album of beautiful Jewish music!
https://open.spotify.com/album/33ihqk4mzr1cP7IrkON0jt?si=O60bXOlTQBWCOetdFfwgUw
The Mon/Wed students are especially curious to hear it, since Morah Rose teaches/leads MW T’fillah for us here. Tues/Sat kids will surely enjoy it, too, because it’s great. Enjoy!

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And don’t forget Purim celebrations. And the pool party.  Gosh!

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Also, to put on your radar: Save the Date for April 24, Shabbat in the Home.  As we are in the midst of our third theme of the year, kesher/connection, we are excited to share that each grade has a Friday evening where families can host each other for Shabbat dinner. This is a wonderful way for students and parents to get to know each other outside of the walls of Yachad and to share in the joy of Shabbat together at home.  You don’t have to be “good at” Shabbat.  More info coming soon. In the meantime, we of course encourage all playdates between the students and families.

Highlight: We can’t wait to celebrate Purim with you! Check out all of our events at this link! We’re particularly looking forward to our Purim Carnival Sunday March 8th where there will be fun for all Yachad students.

On Wednesday and this coming Saturday, 4th Grade scholars put an imaginary bookmark in our Torah stories, and skipped forward 1300 years, to Persia, so that we can dive into the story of Purim.  It’s a great story, featuring two queens, long before Frozen made it cool.

On Monday and Tuesday, 4th Grade redefined heroes: A hero is somebody with a big purpose. A hero tries to overcome obstacles, usually with their special inner qualities.  Everyone has opportunities to be a hero — we just have to see that opportunity, and act on it well.  (We checked: Yep, Jacob from the Torah is a hero.) Students also defined more things that they think of in a hero: for example, a hero might also be a role model, might save the day, might help people altruistically, it might be very subjective, and so on.

Then, we went on to learn and discuss one of the most complex family structures in the whole Torah. We watched the following video, looking for all the things that were unfair in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y8l4RILn-Y  There was plenty to choose from! 

Happy Tu B’Shvat, 4th Grade Parents!

MW students talked about climate change, and designed inventions that could help address the problems they saw in the world.  (Ask them what they invented, they have awesome ideas. Ray guns that shoot ice to help the polar bears have somewhere to walk. Stylish cars that run on carbon and shoot out cool clean air. All their ideas are different and rad.)  MW students also enjoyed playing a game and snacking with Elal, our shinshin, to continue learning about important Israelis in history.

On Tues and Wed (yesterday and today), we’re all discussing empathy.

• Upcoming Closure: Yachad will be closed for the February break from 2/15-2/22. Classes resume Monday, 2/24.  Happy break! 
• Friday Tu B’Shevat Dinner 2/7 Looking forward to our Yachad-wide (all families K – 12) Tu B’Shevat Shabbat dinner on 2/7, 6 – 8pm. We’ll celebrate the birthday of the trees with dinner, singing, and special activities.  We will also be joined by 6 Points Creative Arts Academy Camp Director, Jo-Ellen Unger for info and activities about camp. Registration is now closed.
• Shabbat in the Home, Save the Date: April 24.  As we enter into our third theme of the year, kesher/connection, we are excited to share that each grade will have a Friday evening where families can host each other for Shabbat dinner! This will be a wonderful way for students and parents to get to know each other outside of the walls of Yachad and to share in the joy of Shabbat together at home. 4th Grade’s will be on April 24. More info coming soon.

Have you ever had a nighttime dream that changed your life? What kind of dream would do that?  How might you know that a place felt holy, what would that be like?

While our Torah-hero Jacob was running for his life, he had a beautiful dream: a ladder stretching into the heavens, with angels going up and down it, and at the top, God told Jacob that God would always be with him. When Jacob awoke, he was so amazed that he said, “This was a holy place, and I didn’t even know it!”  Jacob marked the spot specially, and he promised that, if he got home safely, God would be his God forever.

In class, students walked around a gallery of these pictures, by modern Jewish artists all over the world, all depicting this same dream.  Not only did these images show what literally happened in the dream, but also, they tried to show how the dream might have felt.  Some artists and students thought the dream was surprising and active, some thought it was relaxing and spacey, some dizzying like that swirly moment right before you fall asleep.  How do the pictures make you feel?

Hi 4th Grade families! We’ve been spending the last couple classes on the dramatic trickster stories of Jacob, Esau, Rebecca, and Isaac.  Our scholars have written and performed skits about these dramatic stories, often complete with costumes, and had various deep discussions about it.  I hear some of the students are retelling the stories to you at home, which is so awesome!   If you’d like a 5min rundown of the plot, here’s one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGs1WfRKIoM .

And here are some quick pictures of some of the students hard at work on their scripts:

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.

Hello again 4th Grade families!  We also introduced the value of Kesher: Connection. (Not like connected with glue, like, the opposite of feeling lonely.)  Our scholars had massive class brainstorms on the following topics: