Shabbat Songs with Emily

We went to the sanctuary today where we sang Shabbat Songs with Emily. We even learned some new sign language to say, "Thank you, God" or in Hebrew, "Modim Anachnu Lach." We then shared with each other things we are thankful for:
James said, "Toys and Torah"
Brett Stone said, "Food."
Dylan said, "Legos."
Julian said, "Video Games."
You might want to share with your child what you are thankful for and ask them to teach you the sign language!

We then had the chance to open the ark and take out the Torah. Jesse held the Torah as we gently touched its beautiful and colorful cover. We then sang the Shema, which many of the children remember from the Children's Center is the Torah's favorite song.

We ended by singing and doing the American Sign Language for Ma Yafeh Hayom.

Torah up close

Thank you Rabbi Todd for such an amazing view of the Torah!!

Make an edible torah: A family activity

Make an edible torah to celebrate Simchat Torah.

Ingredients:
1 flat tortilla

2 pretzel rods
1 jar of soy or peanut butter, cream cheese, or any other spread
1 licorice string
 

Directions:
Spread peanut butter or other spread over a tortilla.
Put a pretzel rod on the left and right edge of the tortilla.
Wrap the tortilla around the pretzel rods, starting at each side and meeting in the middle of the tortilla.
Use the licorice string to tie around the torah.
Yum!

An Introduction to Simchat Torah

Simchat Torah, which begins this Wednesday evening, celebrates the ongoing cycle of the reading of the Torah. On Simchat Torah we finish reading the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Torah, and immediately begin the first book, Genesis.

The Rabbis pointed out that the last word in the Torah is Yisrael (Israel), and the last letter
of that word is lamed. The first word in the Torah is b’reishit (beginning), and the first letter
is bet. When the last and first letters are combined, the word lev (heart) is spelled. From this
we learn that the Torah is the heart of the Jewish people.

The study of Torah is central to Jewish life. On Simchat Torah we celebrate the past year of
completed Torah study and joyously look forward to the coming year of study and learning.

From The Jewish Parent Page of the Union for Reform Judaism

Havdallah with Levana

The Levana class extended an invitation to the Keshet class this morning.  Would we like to join their Havdallah this morning?  The answer was a resounding yes.

First, the Keshet children enjoyed sharing the Levana "Boker Tov" song as we passed the class's torah from one to another around our big circle.

We came together to mark the end of Shabbat and the beginning of a new week.  The braided candle burned brightly.  We enjoyed smelling the sweet herbs as we imagined the sweet week to come.  When our singing and blessings were completed, the candle made a hiss or sizzle kind of sound as it was extinguished in the cup.

Thank you so much, Levana class, for sharing with us and for including us in another Jewish ritual.

A home for our class Torah!

After we lost our Torah, and then hunted to find it, the children in the Levana class decided we needed a good, safe home for our Torah so we won't lose it again.  We found a box, glue, and fabric, and made a beautiful ark to hold our class Torah.  We worked together, taking turns and working as a team to create a beautiful piece we can keep and use in our classroom.

Sydney looks on and waits for her turn with paintbrush in hand, as Hillary paints glue onto the front door of the ark.

Sydney, Piper, and Hillary work together painting glue onto the ark.

Then, Livi taught us a great new song to sing with our Torah.  We have new lyrics to the song, "I'm a Little Teapot."  It goes likes this:

I'm a little Torah wrapped up tight.

I live in the ark, without any light.

When it's time for Shabbat I will shout

Open the ark, and LET ME OUT!

Shabbat Shalom!

Where Oh Where is our Torah?

Each morning we sing Boker Tov while passing our soft Torah around the circle. Last Monday we brought our Torah to the community room for circle time and somehow forgot to bring it back to our classroom. While Ellen was kind enough to lend us her blue Torah from the office, we really wanted our familiar and much loved one, so today we went searching for our beloved red Torah.   

We asked Ellen in her office, we asked Rachel at her desk, we asked Ebert in the community room, we asked Rohan.  No one had seen our Torah.  Rohan suggested we look in the storage closet downstairs. And lo and behold; there it was. Someone had carefully put it away for us. Harold picked up the Torah and gave it a loving hug. We all shared Lindsey’s sentiment when she exclaimed, “I’m so glad we found it.”   

Jewish Creation Story

Over the course of the week the Tel Aviv children will be learning about the Seven Days of Creation. 

Today we read The Seventh Day and created Night and Day art!  On the first day God created Night and Day...It was good.

Sharing Shabbat

It is always exciting to see moms, dads, grandparents and babysitters arrive at the sanctuary doors to join us for Shabbat.  We sang and welcomed Shabbat with Rabbi Todd, Matt and many special guests.

 

Simchat Torah ~ Celebrating the Joy of Torah ~

We started our week celebrating the gift of "Torah" in our classroom and then later as a community in the sanctuary. First we emphasized that the stories in the Torah are guidelines that help us to be better people, and suggested that perhaps we could write our own classroom Torah.  We became the sofers (Torah scribes). One of the core Jewish values and responsibilities is to use our actions to help others and our world. Some children thought that the following guidelines would help us on our journey:

1) If someone is sick, we could help them, mommies help us when we are sick. 2) Be nice to our brothers and sisters 3) Be helpful 4) Say nice things 5) Take care of G-d's critters 6) Water the plants 7) If someone is sick, we could write them a card 8) You can say thank you and you are welcome 9) We can share our medals when we win with someone who did not win

We will be exploring the many way we can take care of each ourselves, each other, and our environment and our responsibility to do so!

Creating our new Ark!

One of the ways the Tel Aviv class celebrates Simchat Torah is that we create our very own class ark. Last week a few Tel Aviv children found a box that they wanted to use as an ark and this week we have spent time decorating it! The class spent a day using oil pastels in every color imaginable to create drawings of torah and the things torah should have in its house, including a toothbrush! The next day  we added paint and were amazed to see that the oil pastels popped out and that we could still see our designs from the day before. Using Q-tips they painted all the cracks between the pastels lines and really focused on fine motor skills while painting. Also using q-tips enabled more kids to work on painting the ark at one time without making too much of a mess. Everyone was excited to participate and we are excited to have a beautiful new ark which was a true collaboration amongst the 

Tel Aviv class.

A Shavuot Feast!

So even though it's been awhile, I thought I'd share about last Friday's Tel Aviv Shavuot feast! In my life I have never really known much about or celebrated Shavuot until I found myself in Venice wondering around a deserted Jewish quarter on Shavuot two years ago.  When I knocked on the door of the Synagogue I was confused on why it was closed. A religious man opened the door from the restaurant next-door labeled "Kosher Pizza" and asked me if I was Jewish. I saw that it was a Chabad house, an organization I was familiar with, and my friend and I replied yes and went on in. Inside there were Jews from all over the world studying Torah and eating Italian pizza and cheesecake. It was a feast!  We  ate and studied together and discovered we knew many people in common through Brandeis. This was a meaningful Shavuot experience to me and a story that I shared with the Tel Aviv class.

 Since Israel is the land of "MILK and honey" we celebrate Shavuot by eating dairy products. We made our own pizza and the sunshine class shared their cheesecake with us. We sat around the table and shared memories of the stories from the Torah we had learned about throughout the year. Together the class pieced together both the story of Purim and Passover. It was great to see how many details they remember! I also loved observing how one child would remember something that would trigger another memory for someone else. It was truly a group learning experience. Last but not least, Ezra proudly shared the story of Jonah, one that he knows well because of his own brother named Jonah.  
Through our sharing of sorties both past and present and our delicious homemade dairy treats I felt like we were true Torah Scholars and that meaningful Shavout experiences can be found everywhere, even in a four year old's pre-school classroom.  

Shavuot Celebration

 

The Unicorns have had a busy week learning about Shavuot.  We took turns building Mt. Sinai as our Moses puppet climbed to get the Ten Commandments.   We read the book Ten Good Rules and discussed the Commandments in child-friendly terms.  The favorite activity, however, was today's butter making.  We took cream and shook and shook and shook until it turned into delicious butter.  Served with bread or crackers, we all ate a lot of snack.  We eat dairy because the words of the torah flow like milk and honey.

Loving theTorah

The holiday of Shavuot marks the time when Moses received the Ten Commandments from G-d at Mt. Sinai. The Levana children are writing their own Torah using feather quills just as a Sofer does.   

We looked and and held the children's school Torah.

 

Got Shabbat

Parashat Noach
Genesis 6:9–11:32

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make the ark with rooms, and cover it with tar inside and out.    Genesis 6:14

At the beginning of Parashat Noach (Noach is Hebrew for Noah), God tells Noah to build an ark. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. God tells Noah to “make” an ark, but let’s not split hairs. Regardless, there are very specific guidelines Noah must follow in order to complete this project.

Many theories of child development tell us that children acquire skills and concepts in a very predictable sequence. While the timing is unique to each individual child, the sequence in which they learn is typically the same. Some common examples would be that babies learn to roll over before they can crawl. They need to be able to pull themselves up to standing before they learn to walk.

Each skill builds or scaffolds upon the next. In building, scaffolding is a structure used to provide support while a building is being constructed. Eventually, as the structure is completed, the scaffolding is removed and the building can support itself. The term scaffolding also refers to an educational technique, as these scholars point out in the article Scaffolding as a Teaching Strategy:

Scaffolding instruction as a teaching strategy originates from Lev Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory and his concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). “The zone of proximal development is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance” (Raymond, 2000, p.176).

In scaffolding instruction a more knowledgeable other provides scaffolds or supports to facilitate the learner’s development. The scaffolds facilitate a student’s ability to build on prior knowledge and internalize new information. The activities provided in scaffolding instruction are just beyond the level of what the learner can do alone (Olson & Pratt, 2000).

 By providing safe environments and developmentally appropriate toys and games, by spending quality, enjoyable time with their children, by providing structure and predictable routines, parents
are constantly providing scaffolding for their children. As they grow and change, the type of support a parent provides will vary. A concept (and challenge!) that remains the same throughout the
process, though, is the idea of providing enough support for a child to climb to the next level, without parents actually picking the child up and moving him/her there themselves.

For Parents:  Is there a skill that your child now possesses that you remember watching him/her slowly acquire? How did you feel as you watched your child almost get it, but not quite? What did you do?

For Children:  What is your favorite thing to build with (blocks, Legos, etc.)? Have you ever built something that you were really proud of?

From Got Shabbat by the Union for Reform Judaism

Torah, Torah, Torah

Torah, Torah, Torah

Got Shabbat

Parashat B’reishit
Genesis 1:1-6:8

In the 21st century, 24/7 living has gained momentum. It seems like we live an out-of-breath lifestyle. Go, go, go. Buy, buy, buy. Seek, seek, seek. Through the online marketplace, we have access to goods and commerce at every moment of the day or night. The boundaries that used to help keep our schedules in check are fuzzier than they once were. This couldn’t possibly be entirely healthy, could it? Is it what we were meant to do? Is that what living life to the fullest means?

Let’s take a look at this issue of 24/7 living from the perspective of Jewish time. What do Jewish people do with this daily marching of time? How can we distinguish one day from another? How can we turn off the “internet” of our busy lives?

The answer can be found by considering the concept of Shabbat which we first learn about in Parashat B’reishit. After creating day and night, heaven and earth, plants and trees, sun and moon and stars, fish and birds, beasts and people, “God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation which he had done.” Genesis 2:3. So, you see, God actually STOPS the work, CEASES the labor involved in creation and sets down to rest for 24 hours. This is the essence of Shabbat: Stopping, resting and recognizing sacred time. Even though life in the 21st century has served us up a plateful of 24/7, we have the choice to get off the merry-go-round and take advantage of the incredible gift of Shabbat for us and our families.

For young children, the introduction of the recurring nature of Shabbat is in sync with their natural inclination to recognize and find comfort in the patterns of their lives. A strong foundation of routine and pattern can free a child and allow him to explore, knowing that the familiar and predictable will always bring him back to the safe and sound.

Question for Parents: How does the pattern of your child’s routine (or non-routine!) affect you?

Question for Children:  How do you feel when things are different than you thought
they would be? Like… when you usually have school on a Monday but then you have a day off?

Read more about Parashat B’reishit from Got Shabbat of the Union for Reform Judaism

Our Torah's New Home

On Wednesday, in honor of Simchat Torah, we decided it would be nice to create an ark for our friend Torah. The Tel Aviv class was very excited to hear of this project and when I proposed the idea to Eliza at early morning drop off she exclaimed, “I’ll help you!” The class worked together to paint much of the ark and many were very excited to put their color theory knowledge to good use. Hannah taught everyone that blue and red made purple and from then on everyone started to mix the colors, both in the paint-cups and on their hands! We learned quickly that finger painting is an excellent way to decorate the ark and we hope to continue to use many medias and techniques on the ark over the next week or so. It will be excited to watch how it evolves!

Celebrating Simchat Torah