May 23

A “Puzzling” Challenge

This past week, the Shteelimers were given new puzzles to explore hebrew letters. When the children saw that both puzzles could be figured out by arranging the Aleph Beit in order, they got to work! The strategies they used were all cooperative and mostly carried out without any guiding hints from the morot (teachers). This was some very child-directed exploration and teamwork! The children gathered examples of the Aleph Beit that were available around the room and worked together, singing through the Aleph Beit song, and finding matches all on there own.

 

These Shteelimers were singing through Aleph Beit to figure out what's next.

These Shteelimers were singing through Aleph Beit to figure out what’s next.

Looking at a full Aleph Beit chart to figure out what ot (letter) they found and what comes next.

Looking at a full Aleph Beit chart to figure out what ot (letter) they found and what comes next.

 

Challenge completed!

Challenge completed!

 

This moment came after a shteelimer exlaimed, "Hey you guys, I have an idea! Let's find something that has the whole Aleph Beit on it." It worked!

This moment came after a Shteelimer exlaimed, “Hey you guys, I have an idea! Let’s find something that has the whole Aleph Beit on it.” It worked!

 

QIsoBOQ-ap2sc2yQKwTvvtFEkzLgfOgAMLyuy9TpRCc

May 23

שלום חברים (Shalom Chaverim!)

Shalom Chaverim Pic

I just had to post this!

When I asked a Shteelimer boy to show me the hand motions to his favorite song we sing at שירה תפלה (Shirah/Tefillah)… He asked “Why can’t I just sing it to you?!” Before I could answer, he began…

Shalom Chaverim

 

 

 

May 23

Lights, Camera, ACTION!

This week all of NItzanim’s hard work came to a head when they were finally read to film with props, sets and puppets in hand! A quick writing activity helped them sort out which puppets they need for the scene: עצוב (ah-tzuv, sad) David or שמח (sah-may-ach, happy) David; angry or calm Melech Shaul…

Photo May 19, 9 52 02 AM

Here a group from the Feast scene collaborated to fill the page with ideas and reasons why the characters have certain emotions. Later, the characters will be interviewed.

 

Photo May 19, 10 04 57 AM

Let the rehearsals and filming begin!

 

 

 

 

May 23

Filming!

This week, Nitzanim filmed our show about David and Yonatan. (Oh, my!)

We assembled the sets, using shrinky-dink props and shoebox sets we’d made in yetzirah.

IMG_4973

We showed each other our puppet scenes to get feedback from fellow Nitzanimers.

IMG_4977

We read our scenes out loud again using the storybook we made, to recall details from the story before we filmed.

IMG_5068

We played Hebrew games while we waited for our turn to film.

IMG_4970

We played lots of games. Filming everyone’s scenes took a while!

IMG_5005

Here, children have self-organized a few minutes of quiet before we start working again.

IMG_5059

The second part of our show involves interviewing David, Yonatan, and Melekh (King) Shaul. We made notes for interview questions and answers.

IMG_5011

Here, Melekh Shaul is interviewed about how he’s feeling. (This theme is about yedidut – friendship, remember? Nitzanim has focused on understanding our own feelings and our friends’ feelings.)

IMG_5031

Interviewing a very sad David, who has had to leave his best friend, Yonatan, and doesn’t know when he’ll get to see him again.

IMG_5088

Part of the girl-team that designed and acted out the scene of the women singing in the street.

IMG_5037

May 17

Yedidut (Friendship) in Nitzanim

After nearly two years together in Nitzanim, we love being together. We’ve worked things out time after time, learned language that keeps everyone emotionally safe, and we’ve grown in being able to see what’s going on with a friend and respond appropriately. It is such a joy to be a Nitzanimer these days!! We love being together!!

Here are some of the things we enjoyed doing together this week:

- Laughing together while we draw pictures for the Shiron (songbook)

IMG_4882

- Playing Bingo with numbers in Hebrew (they were hot games this week!)

IMG_4888

IMG_4930

- Falling over together doing the tree pose (also for our Shiron – songbook!)

IMG_4877

- Helping each other complete a Hebrew word search

IMG_4862

- Building a set together for our Yedidut (friendship) final project

Photo May 13, 5 10 14 PM

- Sharing stories

Photo May 14, 2 15 42 PM

May 16

Not Just for Grown Ups! Shteelim at Sinai

To celebrate Shavuot, Shteelim reenacted the story of Har Sinai (Mt. Sinai). A beautiful midrash (rabbinic tale/ interpretation) about the story of Sinai is that all Jewish people (past and future, young and old, Jew by birth and Jew by choice) were at Sinai together.

We used our imaginations to travel out of Egypt, across the red sea, through the desert, all the way to Har Sinai. We acted out the story, pretending that each child got the Torah handed down to them from on top of Har Sinai. All this was to show Shteelim…the Torah doesn’t just belong to grown ups! It’s yours too.

We also took turns building Har Sinai. One midrash teaches that Har Sinai was a little mountain surrounded by bigger mountains to show that anyone can come and reach Torah. Together we read a children’s version of this story and took turns making little mountains in pairs. This meant practicing all of our yedidut (friendship) sharing language about playing biyachad (together)

Working in pairs to build a little Har Sinai next to bigger mountains.

 

May 15

Shavuot!

In the right place at the right time. Rabbi Rebecca scored some beautiful branches of a blooming tree near Lab School. The Nitzanimers decorated them with ideas about Shavuot and Shteelim with ideas about the Torah. By the time the community was ready to celebrate, the עץ (ehtz- tree) was coved in insightful facts, Hebrew writing, and colorful illustrations! Plus it smelled good, too!

Photo May 14, 1 44 47 PM

Photo May 14, 2 08 04 PM

Photo May 14, 2 08 16 PM

IMG_4938 IMG_4937

 

May 08

Hebrew Creativity

Must’ve been something in the air.

During choice time, THREE Nitzanimers chose to do something creative with Hebrew.

 

One boy decided to write the Shema from memory, sounding out the words.

 IMG_4822

Another boy decided to play with the vowels he was reviewing. Again and again, he put vowels under every letter and happily read his entire (22 letters long!) nonsense word.

 IMG_4827

A third boy decided to make a chart of the alef-bet, writing each letter in print, in script, and its numerical value in gematria (a code in which each Hebrew letter equals a number).

 IMG_4833

At the end of the day, the Nitzanimers spied something in Hebrew that the Shteelimers had been working on, and demanded that Nitzanim get to do it, too! We just love working with Hebrew!

IMG_4834

May 08

A Gift to the Community

This week in Yetzirah, Shteelim began creating a gift for the community of the Enrichment Center. It is thoughtful, chock full of great memories and there are many detailed parts to this project for which we need each and every Shteelimer to contribute their best efforts! And boy are we on our way!

Here’s a sneak peek of Shteelimers in production mode:

Photo May 06, 4 23 57 PM

Hebrew words were written by an educator. Then, the Shteelimer’s “wrote” the אותיות (otiyot – letters) on their own by pressing yarn onto the sticky surface with their little fingers. Such careful work. The room was quiet with focus. And big eyes concentrated on all the curves and shapes of each אות (ot – letter). Photo May 06, 4 20 19 PM

A Shteelimer’s אבא (abba - dad) even decided to join in and help create hebrew words!

More production pictures coming soon…

 

 

 

 

 

May 07

The Inside Scoop on David the Harp Player

This week the morot (educators) posed a big question to the Shteelimers in order to further explore the story of David and Shaul. And so we asked, ”How do you think David felt becoming the King’s harp player?”

The Shteelimers had the following ideas.

- Happy because  he wanted to be a harp player/ musician and before he was a shepherd.

- Sad because he missed being a shepherd.

- Happy because he got to help Shaul feel better.

- Sad because it didn’t always work and a lot of times Shaul still felt bad.

- Sad because he had to help Shaul and Shaul was mean and angry.

- Maybe he felt like a slave.

 

Then Shteelim began a new project of putting these ideas onto our very own scroll…just like the scroll that holds the story of David! There’s a whole lot more where this came from!

IMG_20130506_153737_113-2IMG_20130506_161849_094IMG_20130506_161842_318-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Older posts «

Facebook Like Button for Dummies