We’re back! Our fifth and sixth grade children have been to the Jewish Enrichment Center, so we gave them a group challenge right away. I pulled out a long, long jump rope, and said,
“Our challenge is to get everyone through to the other side, counting eser ad me’ah (10 – 100).”
The fifth and sixth grade children figured it out.
Then I said, “What assumptions did you make?” We named a few, and then I asked them to solve the challenge a different way.
What creativity! The children communicated differently, they chose new assumptions, they laughed. And then we solved our challenge with another set of assumptions, and a fourth way, too. The last time, they didn’t even use the jump rope!
“How was our challenge like what Jews around the world do during Elul?” I asked.
Here are a few of their fabulous answers:
- “It’s like Elul because were doing something, and then we were thinking about what we do.”
- “We haven’t seen each other in a while, so we are repairing relationships.”
- “Sometimes we make mistakes because we make assumptions.”
- Sometimes you assume someone likes something, but they don’t.”
It’s so great to be back.
