Continue reading »]]> 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.)

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.

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

Continue reading »]]> 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)

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

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

- Helping each other complete a Hebrew word search

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

- Sharing stories

Continue reading »]]> 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)

Continue reading »]]> 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!

Continue reading »]]> 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.

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.

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).

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!

Continue reading »]]> 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:

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). 

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

More production pictures coming soon…

Continue reading »]]> 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!

Continue reading »]]> This week Shteelim dug into the Aleph Beit in new ways. When we realized the children were especially excited to play a colorful Aleph-Beit matching game we kept on adding steps and challenges to deepen their exploration and enliven their learning. Here is how you play!

Step one: Line up the Aleph Beit cards face down and flip over two. Do you know the אות ot (letter?) If you do shout it out with the sound it makes. “Gimmel! G-g-g-g-g-g-gimmel!”

Step two: If you don’t know the אות ot (letter), pick it up, stand next to an Aleph Beit chart. Sing through the Aleph Beit!

Step three: Stop when you reach the אות ot (letter) that looks the same! Hold it up to the Aleph Beit chart to be sure and then call it out!

With these three steps and increased explorations in writing Hebrew letters, the children are using the final weeks in Shteelim to really deepen their Aleph Beit skills!

Continue reading »]]> On Sunday the Shorashimers and Shteelimers joined together in Yetzirah to record sound effects for a very anticipated movie coming soon to your local Jewish Enrichment Center theater! דוד & יונתן (David & Jonathan) is a story of yedidut, friendship, and many dramatic moments of emotion, action and secret codes.

Shorashim and Shteelim have created backdrops and costumes…

… And now, a preview of the sound effects:

Melech Shaul Angry Growl

Yonatan In the Field Walking

Continue reading »]]> It was hot in Beit Nitzanim. The children were restless. Whatever I had in my mind about what we would do next with the story of David and Yonatan was clearly NOT what the children were interested in doing.

So I asked them: what do YOU think we should do?

Wham! Total focus. Bouncing up and down on the couch in excitement about the possibilities. Everyone added their opinion, even children who were working on cards for a Nitzanimer who broke her arm this week.

And, wow! I’m not going to give away the children’s great ideas about our final project for this theme, but they’re fabulous. And what amazing collaboration I’m witnessing. Here’s a little peek into what they’re working on now. Can you tell what our children are doing? More clues next week!