We learned about Sukkot this week, and everyone got to build their own sukkah out of magnetic tiles at the start of class!
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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.
Jewish Studies
Tuesdays/Wednesdays Jewish Studies with Haley
We missed our students this week in our Tuesday and Wednesday Yachad classes. However, we were so excited to see so many 2nd graders at our Yom Kippur activities! We can’t wait to be back together as a class next week to learn all about how special the torah is to us as Jews.
Third grader have received their siddurim and celebrated Yom Kippur!
We’ve spent the first month of 5th grade Yachad learning about Mitzvot(commandments). We’ve talked about what they are, which ones are important to each of us, and how they relate to the High Holidays. Now, it’s time to see where they show up in our world.
This week, we discussed Yom Kippur and how we can begin again when we make mistakes. We did a classroom tashlich, where the kids drew or wrote about an attitude or behavior that they wanted to leave behind in the old year, and then they tore up their paper and cast it away.
Students explored why we have 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to say we are sorry and explored the importance of making plans.
Jewish Studies
Tuesdays/Wednesdays Jewish Studies with Haley
We missed our students on Tuesday when Yachad was closed for Rosh Hashanah, but hope you hear about what we are working on and are excited to learn when we return together in a couple weeks. On Wednesday, students learned all about the stories and traditions that make us Jewish. We learned the Jewish value of L’dor V’dor or from generation to generation and how as Jews we have a long tradition of passing stories and ritual objects through generations. We read the story The Keeping Quilt and learned how one family made a quilt to remember their ancestors and passed it down to their children to tell the story of their family. Then, we each made our own quilt squares with drawings of traditions in their family and objects that make us feel Jewish. Soon, we will have a quilt made up of all our 2nd grade traditions.
Students continued exploring the connection between Rosh Hashanah and Genesis/Bereshit through diving into the creation of the world. Through their own stories of beginnings, hearing a story about how Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the world and activities to reflect on how birthdays are celebrated, students deepened their understanding of Rosh Hashanah and continued bonding as a class. In Hebrew students played with the words יום הולדת, להוריד, להרים , שנה טובה (good year, to raise, to lower, birthday).
Students explored a story about the first Shabbat and the first night and found similarities between Rosh Hashanah and Havdallah (the ritual ceremony that marks the transition of Shabbat to the rest of the week). Through listening to the story, playing a game and reflecting on the comparisons students came away with ideas about how we enter into new beginnings and transitions. In Hebrew through Movement students played with the words challah, kita and shofar.