What are we thankful for in 3 D

Shabbat is here. We celebrate in community always mindful of what we have to be thankful for. On this Friday we heard children express gratitude for "God, trees , daisies, toys-submarines-cars, snowmen, basketball, summer, birthdays, juice, snakes, lions, Shabbat, Ninjas, sushi, family , and sisters. We decided to provide children with the opportunity to express their ideas using clay. It was beautiful to witness the dedication to details and how the clay was transformed as their ideas emerged . Here are just a few examples . Eli said he was thankful for Shabbat. He stared his journey of expression with those concrete items we see, candles, challah, and kiddush cup. As he was forming the candle holders he stood and looked and then said that God lived in his candle. He then proceeded to represent his image .

Summer birthday celebrations

Ryan and Zack were excited to celebrate their school birthdays. Both Ryan and Zack will be turning 6 in the summer. They invited their siblings Julia and Sydney to come and celebrate with us . As is our tradition, we asked them to think about what each person would like to have on their birthday banner. You might want to ask about the hockey adventures, who was the MVP, and the rescue adventures? Happy early birthday Ryan and Zack!

Welcome Larry

The day finally arrived and the mysterious Larry had arrived. He happily shared in our outdoor adventures before heading in to the celebration. The Kohavim boys and girls led them into the community room. Eli thought they needed two line comprised of the Kohavim children to welcome into the party. We learned what the Jewish celebration involves and that a "ketubah" is uniquely a Jewish contract. Jesse and Larry shared what it means to start their celebration as husband and wife. "Celebrate together to share our hopes and dreams, and allow us to become the people we are yet to be, we will make a home that is filled with love and understanding and the traditions of our heritage, that means we really want a Jewish home together, we REALLY want a Jewish home, and it says all this we take upon ourselves, so when we sign this we agree to all of this, that is what we are saying when we get married." Thank you to all the parents and children who gave their gift of time and talent to have this celebration of joy. Congratulations to the happy couple!!!

My Very Own Siddur...

The Kohavim children have been busy working on a God Project over the past months. Together they have shared their ideas and questions about God: Where does God live? What does God look like? How can you talk to God? And they have used different mediums such as, water color paints, clay, and photography to represent their theories.

As our school year is coming to an end, the teachers realized we needed to culminate our investigation of God in a way that celebrates the work we have done together and enables the children to further explore their ideas. We decided to create a Siddur that captures the children's experiences thus far with God. Just like the Siddurs the children flip through in the sanctuary on Fridays, each child will get to have their own personal Siddur reflecting their questions, ideas, and experiences. Over the next few days, the children will have the opportunity to personalize their Siddur which will grow and change with them as they grow and their ideas change.

Chuppah making Stage II

We continued our building, hammering, holding, and making it stable.  Stage one complete: we have 4 poles, it is stable ( some tape needed to secure) What else did we need? Max and Eli get started on some decorations. The Etzim class shared some of their flowers that they were going to use for their castle. Thank you Laura and Steve and Etzim boys and girls for sharing your materials so we could complete our Chuppah.  As we were creating our Chuppah Brett said it reminded him of our Sukkah building. The children carefully selected the flowers they wanted and started the process of gluing it on Chuppah. Yes it is very similar. It is created to welcome people. In this case the bride and groom. It is finally May 28th and Larry is coming. ( not Larry Bird, but Larry Tobin) just clarifying.

It's Chuppah Time

The Kohavim boys and girls have been anticipating the arrival of the mysterious "Larry". The planning was in process for our wedding celebration. What did we need to prepare for our celebration? Sasha volunteered to share the research project she prepared with her 2nd and 3rd grade Mayim Students. Thank you Sasha for sharing your knowledge with us! The Kohavim boys and girls looked at the blueprint plan for the Chuppah and discovered we had much work to do. We needed 4 poles, but only had two. What are we going to do?? After some careful observation they indicated that we needed to gather more sticks. What kind of sticks? How could ensure we were collecting the size we needed? Noah suggested getting a measuring tape. Sabrina volunteered to record the measurements. It was determined we needed sticks that were at least 56 inches long. Off we went on our expedition for more sticks. We collected sticks and started our construction of our Chuppah. Much team work and problem solving involved!!!

It is so bittersweet

Friday May 31, 2013 was our last Shabbat together as a class. We are both sad and happy. We will miss being with each other and, at the same time, happy for the children as they move up another rung of the ladder to the summer and next year.

To mark the occasion we had a very special Shabbat breakfast with a scrambled eggs, watermelon, challah and juice. We all sat together, said all of the blessings, and listened to the final chapters of My Father's Dragon. It was a great celebration.