Hello! Shalom! Sholem-Aleykhem!

This week we had an especially musical day, with a special program: Traveling the Yiddishland with Dmitri Slepovitch. Children were invited to gather and learn about Yiddishkayt and popular Yiddish songs, performed by ethnomusicologist and acclaimed Klezmer musician, Dmitri "Zisl" Slepovitch. There was singing, dancing, and we even learned a bit of Yiddish. Little did we know, we already know and use Yiddish in our everyday life! Did you know 'Bagel' is actually a Yiddish word? Later we had a visit from Paul, as we continue to get ready for next week's Chanukah party (get ready for quite the concert!). 

We also continued to explore Hebrew letters as we also got up and moved our body in this fun interactive letter hunt! Beginning together, we overlooked several Hebrew letters built out of blocks and waited for various letters to be called. 

After a letter was called, we raced to find the matching block letters (without pushing of course!)

 Once a letter was found, we sat as a team around the letter we had found. This was not only a fun way to learn our Hebrew letters, but it was a great way to get our bodies involved! 

The End of our First Cycle

This Saturday we had both completions and new beginnings!

We had our last day of our first specialty -- ceramics, and there we put our final touches on our Menorahs with gorgeous paint colors. Following this theme, we LEARNED BLESSINGS, told STORIES, and DISCUSSED the holiday of CHANNUKAH. Of course Paul came to sing our favorite Chanuukah songs. During story-time, we learned about all the special symbols and components that are relevant to Channukah -- the menorah with eight openings for light along with a ninth Shamash, jelly doughnuts and warm latkes, golden coins called GELT, DREIDELS, and, as Quincy put it: the best thing of all -- the warmth of family and friends.

We continued our conversation/artistic representations on the seven days of creation. We filled in our creation circles with the specific category of worldliness that was created on each day. (See last week's post for a recap).

Finally, with the most eager of anticipation, we filmed our our first short film! We will make a creative video of each day for the next few weeks as we move into our second cycle -- storytelling!

Next week we are organizing a field trip to the place for stories... the library! We will be sending out an email with more details.

We are also looking forward to welcoming our parents/guardians into the classroom Saturday, November 23rd celebrate Channukah -- the Festival of Lights and the closing of our first cycle!

Here Comes the Sun

Creation was in the air today! 

As we gear up for Hanukah we created our very own Menorahs in ceramics. 

 

As we continue in our classroom with our exploration of stories, we discussed the Creation Story. We listened first and then decided to try our hand at acting it out... with great success! 

We wiggled our way throughout the seven days of creation, from water to sky and sun, to animals of the land and sea. 

After taking a singing break with Paul, we returned to our stories. Kids split up into three groups to illustrate the days and creation. 

Group 1 covered Days 1-3 (the creation of light, day and night, sky, water and land), Group 2 covered Day 4 (the creation of the sun and moon) and Group 3 explored Day 5 (the creation of sea creatures and birds). Next week we will continue to explore Days 6 and 7. 

Next week we will also continue to explore stories as we continue to think about upcoming Hanukah as well as our own stories and storytelling unit with Joyce. 

Creatively Constructing

On Saturday at Havurah we were BUILDERS, CREATORS and CONSTRUCTORS of community!

We began by reviewing our first three letters (Aleph, Bet, and Gimel) with BLOCKS

 

We made squiggly letters and straight ones --

we built our Aleph-Bet tall and far

We sang our welcome song, but with a twist: Sydney, Sarah, and Jesse each suggested a different direction in which we could sing our song -- creativity was in the air!

We enjoyed Challah and juice as we raised them into the air to practice our Hebrew blessings -- our voices are growing louder and more articulate each week

In ceramics we solidified our technique of making a checkerboard on the clay and binding with water (Score and Slip)

Nate built a schoolbus, Simone shaped X's and O's (CLAY hugs and kisses), Jesse worked with oppositions--he made both a hot dog bun and then a tunnel for a train, Quincy made snowmen, and a whole team worked together to make a family

Later, we sung LOUD AND SPIRITED with Paul

Back in our classroom, we revisited our Aleph word-- AARETZ

We built our own cities, towns, buildings, castles, and landscapes

 
We used ALL the materials and tools we could find -- marble beads for rocks and bricks and decorations, sea shells, and small people, too!

Not only did we build our own community, we cleaned up like a real team --

We divided and conquered, each child with a different task for clean up -- it was amazing!

Finally, we contributed to our Aleph-Bet books.

We worked on our title pages, as well as our first two pages

Our drawings of Aleph and Bet were diversely unique and colorful -- each child is thrilled to have a book of their own that they will contribute to on a weekly basis

Can't wait for next Havurah, as we will begin to prepare our minds for the Festival of Lights --  Chanukah

Building a Story

This week at Havurah we discussed the word COMMUNITY to understand that we ourselves are a TEAM that listens, learns, and experiences with one another.

We went on an adventure to the staircase to notice the artistic space we inhabit -- the expressions of community that line our every wall.

We imagined what it means to be the creator of ones own story.

We discussed what it takes to build an imagined story - a title, an author, a collection of characters, and an adventure! We considered the difference between stories that are make-believe and stories that are real and true!


This conversation led into a group project that we will continue throughout the year -- each student created the title page for her/his own Aleph-Bet book. We will fill it to the brim as we learn the Jewish letters and the most exciting and relevant Hebrew words associated with these letters.

Aleph א for Aaretz ארץ --> Land
Bet ב for Bayit בית --> Home
Gimel ג for Glidah גלידה and Goi גוי --> Ice Cream and Nation (ice-cream eaters that we are)





In ceramics we learned how to SCORE and how to bind pieces of clay together

We talked about action words -- what we DO to the clay -- roll, twist, flatten, and even "leave it as is"

Later we sang with Paul -- he even introduced the Aleph-Bet song to help us remember our letters.

We built on the themes we discussed last week and solidified both our schedule and our group dynamic; we had a blast all along!

Getting to Know You

This week in Havurah, classroom 4 spent some time thinking about BIG QUESTIONS! Firstly, we discussed our own ideas about what Judaism means to us. We will revisit this idea throughout the year and think about if our ideas change or grow. Kids answered the following prompt: “To me, ‘being Jewish’ means…” Here are some ideas we had:

“Celebrating different holidays.” – Rachel

“My mom, my dad and my magic blanket.” –Qunicy

“People talking together.”  -Simone

“Having friends and having the whole school come together and say Jewish things.”-Bryce

“Go to temple, sing songs and talk.” – Jesse

“Being with my family at my house and having Challah.” – Sarah

“Playing drums at Temple.” –Ethan

“Playing guitar at Temple.” – Nate

So now that we have an idea of what it means to us to be Jewish, we talked about what we want to learn and gain from Havurah this year. After an exciting brainstorming session, we all agreed that we wanted to make our own movie! This will be a big project that we will work on throughout the year, so more updates to come! One thing we will need to consider is what stories we would like to draw inspiration from.

Thinking of stories, we continued our conversation of the Jewish folktale, The Sun and the Jealous Moon. Drawing inspiration from the companionship and friendship of the moon and the stars, we drew our own drawings of people in our own lives that we love and support.

We also continued our exploration of the Alephbet, learning this week about Bet! As we settle into our classroom 4 routines, Alephbet activities, our welcome meetings and blessings over snack, we are moving forward in what is sure to be an exciting and enriching year!

And Here We Go!

For our first day of Havurah 2013-2014, we spent the day sharing our thoughts on friendship, what the JCC means to us, dancing, creating and singing (a lot of singing). 

We began our Welcome Meeting by sharing some of our favorite things about the JCC and learned our Shalom Song which we will be singing every week to welcome our friends back. We had an exciting visit to ceramics with Catherine where we explored clay and warmed up for a year of clay creation!

We learned about the Jewish Folktale The Sun and The Jealous Moon, which we will continue to explore next week.

We reflected on what friendship means to us and learned about the jealousy that the moon felt for the sun. Next week we will get to sink our teeth a little deeper into this Jewish Folktale as we explore friendship in our own Havurah community.

After our story time we moved our feet and had a rockin' good time as Paul led us through music time! 

We wrapped up our day by exploring our first Hebrew letter of the year, Alef. Next week we will continue to talk about the letter Alef as we explore the word Aretz, Hebrew for Land. We will be exploring our own lands- classroom 4, the JCC, New York City and beyond!