It is Challah Time

The Kohavim boys and girls love making Challah on Shabbat! Jacob, Ben , Jared have been asking to make challah in our extended day program. We planned for this day and had extra dough. It was great to see them teach each other how to braid! Sam and Nathan left early on Friday and took their dough home. It was so nice to hear their excitement of making Challah as they greeted their moms. Jacob had dinner plans but wanted to eat "the whole challah" on the way home. Jared ate alittle piece as he was getting ready for outdoor play. Thank you boys for teaching one s other and showing such enjoyment for challah making traditions .

Music & Havdalah

Today the Levana class had the pleasure of Josh Shriber (Father of one of our fellow Levanians, Piper) who came to play music and sing with the children. They had so much fun following along hand motions, pretending to be drummers, learning new songs, and they had a dance party to the song "jump up!" Thank you, Josh!
After our fun filled music session, the class did our Monday ritual of Havdalah together. We blessed the fire of the candle, wished everyone a wonderful week to come, and smelled the lovely cinnimon spice to represent a sweet new week until the next sabbath. Though the children in Levana are young and still learning about being Jewish, the weekly routine of Havdalah and Shabbat introduces a constant observance of Jewish tradition within classroom environment. Below are some pictures from our music class and Havdalah circle. Enjoy!

Soup Time

Tradition, tradition, tradition. What would we be without those memories of special foods celebrated at our holidays. The children were looking forward to Matza Ball soup. Melissa brought in all the ingredients and off they went to cook this delicious soup. Luckily we made a lot and there was enough for two days. Not only did it taste great but the smell through out the halls and classroom was just inviting us to eat more and more.

Havdalah with Sasha!

Today Sasha led the Havdalah Service in the Community Room. Thanks Sasha for helping us all get off to a sweet start, to a brand new sweet week!

Chanukah Blessings !!!

Challah on Shabbat!

Making challah on Shabbat is always a popular choice in the Tel Aviv classroom! The children gather around the table roll, chat, knead and create their own special challah that they take home to share with their family. Some children like to braid their challah and others like to make letter shaped challah. Regardless of the shape of their challah, some how they all taste the same...delicious! When the challah cools off from the hot oven, the children love to find their challah and wrap it up to take home all by themselves.

Shabbat Shalom!

A Mezuzah for our door!

Today we read A Mezuzah on the Door,By Amy Meltzer. In the book Noah's mom explained to him that a mezuzah contains the words of the Shema (literally, "hear" or "listen"). The words of the Shema come from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. In the Torah's final book, Deuteronomy, we find these words of the Shema: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One". This single sentence is considered the crux of Judaism, the affirmation of the Jewish people's belief in one God. These words lead to three paragraphs that include references to a mezuzah being placed, as a reminder, on the "doorposts of your homes..."

The book also explained how both the Torah and the mezuzah are handwritten in Hebrew by a sofer, a scribe. We talked about how we are going to draw a picture of a blessing we have, for our family to place inside our mezuzah with the words of the Shema.

After circle time we started decorating our mezuzah. The children took little pieces of clay and worked with it for a while(rolled, pinched, pushed and then placed it on their mezuzah. They selected their colors carefully and deliberately.  Each child's mezuzah is unique and quite colorful I might add. The children were so proud to show everyone that came into the room today, their very own mezuzah!

Tomorrow we will bake them in the oven and the last step is a surprise that we will share with parents at our Shabbat Shindig gathering! We can't wait!

Tel Aviv's Mezuzah Walk!

The Tel Aviv class will be spending a lot of time this week learning about, and making, their very own mezuzot! Their mezuzah exploration started with a class "mezuzah walk" around the temple. Together we found 11 mezuzahs. Many of which we different materials and had different colors and designs on them. It was so great to see their excitement after each time they found another mezuzah. We learned that even though mezuzot may look different from the outside each one has the same prayer on the inside and the Hebrew letter Shin on the outside. Tomorrow we will start making our own mezuzot out of sculpey!

Tashlich Ceremony In Kohavim woods

Today in the Kohavim class we had our morning meeting outside. We have been preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We wanted to provide the children with a visual representation of looking forward to the New Year, with new resolve to try our best. Everyone, children and adults make mistakes, but the important thing is to learn about how we can do differently by thinking about what we could do better the next time.

We read some of the story of the Tashlich at Turtle Rock. In this story a family goes out in the woods to their favorite places, all the while thinking about both the good things and the sad things that have occured through the year, and make plans for a sweeter new year. What things have we done that we feel badly about? What could we do differently to make it better? We heard that sometimes, we are mean to brothers, but we don't want to do that., sometimes we run super speedy and knock people down, sometimes we get aggravated, sometimes we punch, and sometimes we don't listen to our parents when they ask us to get our P.J. on at night, even after they ask three times, and sometimes we raise our voices. So we thought about how we could do better. Your children said: I will take a deep breath before I get angry and not punch, can look around where I am going watching for a friend, and not be mean to my brother, (with teacher guidance~ think about getting pajamas on after being asked the first time., and teachers as parents remember to take deep breaths when speaking to their own children (who sometimes don't listen) We didn't have a stream, but we dug a ditch, crumbled our breadcrumbs and watched them disappear to symbolize throwing our sadness away with resolve for improvement.
 
As we look forward to a New Sweet Year, may we remember this Tashlich ceremony as a symbol of throwing away our mistakes, and looking forward to trying our best to be kind and thoughtful.

Happy New Year to all.