Class on September 22

Today we began our class singing with Joel, together with Kindergarten. We focused on songs for the holidays that the children will hear if your family goes to services. There favorite song was "The Shofar Blast".

 Our lesson for learning about the meaning of Yom Kippur focused on reflecting on feelings. On this holy day we remember the many blessings in our lives. I put four words on big poster boards: perfect, mistake, apologize, respectful. After we reflected on what the words meant to us, I asked the children to go to each poster and draw a picture or write words that remind them of how they feel about acting in each of these ways.

 REFLECTION: Ask you child how they feel when they apologize, make a mistake, feel like they have to be perfect, or treat some one with respect.

Next turn it around and discuss how they feel when someone else apologizes, makes a mistake, has to be perfect, or is not respectful.

Quotes that came up for the children:
" I felt really good because we don't want to hide your feelings"
" We should treat everyone how we want to be treated."
" It is okay to make mistakes we can keep trying and then we will get it"
" Perfect is doing your best"

 I learned last year that doing taslich with water on the tables was not as successful as it could be. Therefore, this year the children went back to the papers on the tables and wrote words or pictures about what they are sorry for doing that might have hurt someone's feelings or what they want to do better in the year to come. This is a big topic for this age, so we focused on meaningful ways to say sorry and show you mean it.





After they were done writing what they are sorry for, I poured black paint and they covered it all up so that we can start fresh for the new year. The experience was exciting and brought meaning to the children about how words can effect us.

The story of the day was "The Hardest Word" It an adventure of a bird named ZIZ who makes a mistake he can not fix. The story focuses on how important it can be to say "sorry."

Today we also started the first lesson in our Hebrew program learning new words through movement every week (the program is called "TPR" or "Total Physical Response"). The children mostly remembered the words from last year and jumped right into the experience. I would say sit, stand, jump, run, turn around and they watched me and then were able to follow the commands. After 7 minutes they were able to respond to the commands without me performing them and they relied on each other and remembered what action to do for each word. Every week we will spend 15 minutes practicing and learning Hebrew words.

First day of class

Today we focused on getting to know each other. We began with  introducing ourselves by playing a spiderweb game. Each friend had a turn holding the string and sharing something they want to learn this year and then rolled the string to another friend. At the end we had a web of learners. We were so excited we forgot to take a picture of the game in progress.

We discussed our class rules. The children came up with this list themselves. They were very thoughtful about what it means to be respectful to one another.

This game is called I love my neighbor who.........

One person stands in the middle and finishes the statement with a word.I began the game with I love my neighbor who is JEWISH. Everyone who agrees moves to a different spot the last person gets to be next. We continued this game a few rounds as the children thought of what they wanted to learn about their new classroom community of friends.

We played another mixer game to get to know each other. The children were asked to find friends that have the same birthday month. This helped the children feel more comfortable meeting new friends and getting to know one another better.  When they were in there groups I asked them to share one Jewish object that represents Rosh Hashanah.

These games helped us build our class kehilla-community. The children giggled as they meet new and old friends. We began talking about Rosh Hashana and compiled a list of what we know and what we want to learn about Rosh Hashana. Sunday September 23 we will conclude our activity with adding what we learned about Rosh Hashana. It was a short and sweet first class meeting and a wonderful beginning to our new year.

Shavua tov! I am so excited to learn and grow with your children. I have been teaching at Temple Isaiah for 10 years and have been so blessed by the community. It is rewarding to see the children grow and learn about what it means to be Jewish. I will be updating the blog once a week. You and your children can see together what we have learned each class meeting through the pictures and posts of our focus of the day. I look forward to getting to know each and every one of you.
B'ahava (with love)
Aya