Mar 10
Wow! We have worked hard for seven weeks to explore יוסף (Yosef – Joseph) in the Torah. From wrestling with how brothers could sell another brother into slavery, to feeling renewed determination to stand up for others in tough situations (born out of a heated classroom conversation about whether or not the character of Reuven was brave), we are closing this …
Mar 06
Even after eight weeks of our Yosef theme, we still wonder. We are still excited to offer interpretations. We’re still connecting parts of the text with how we view the world. And in this final week of the theme, as we finish up our final projects and synthesize our ideas, we’re also lending our voices …
Mar 04
This week, Anafim (“Branches”) 3rd – 5th grade children were in final project mode. We had focus. We were creative. We challenged ourselves, and through our final projects, came to new understandings about the Torah, ourselves, and each other. It’s what final projects are all about. We also took time to play Hebrew games!
Mar 02
Nitzanim and Anafim are making huge steps towards there final projects! We thought hard, discussed, drafted, and redrafted our project ideas. Now, we are finally starting to create our projects! All that prep work has paid off and it is thrilling to see the ideas come to life. The Nitzanimers are primarily focused on using …
Feb 29
As our יוסף (Yosef) theme comes to a close, children are deeply inside of their Big Question. Every child has had a small group meeting to develop a Big Question and an interpretation. They’ve drafted and begun their final projects in יצירה (yetzirah—art/creativity) based on their interpretations. Today each child met with me one-on-one to …
Feb 26
This week, Anafim set out to identify our Big Questions and Ideas about the Yosef story. First, we went back through our Questions and Ideas notes from each of the chapters of the text. We pulled out Big Questions and generated new ones. Second, we headed over to our collages. We gave titles to our earlier work, …
Feb 25
This week we have continued the exploration of יוסף (Yosef) and the kids’ understanding of the story. With the creation of puppets, costumes, and building parts of the story, while thinking about Yosef’s יוסף feelings in Yetzirah. The topics of family, sadness, power, hunger, and emotion have all come up. A very modern castle for …
Feb 24
This week Shorashim and Shteelim used tie dye to show how Yosef felt on the outside of his tunic. “I’m making the colors of how יוסף (yo-sef -Yosef) felt in the pit. כחול (Ka-chole – Blue) means sad, אדום (adome – red) means mad, the grey he felt bad and the ירוק (yaroke – yellow) …
Feb 21
It might not look like much. Two children and an iPad. Or, a different two children and an iPad. While it may not look like much, Nitzanim accomplished something extraordinary today. After identifying their Big Questions (see this post for more about our Big Questions about Yosef), children were handed an iPad and a brief …
Feb 19
In Anafim (“Branches”) our 3rd – 5th grade children have a lot of choice about how they want to learn, and how they spend their time. They’re taking responsibility for their own learning. It looks like: Drawing a comic of the Torah text, because I love drawing Collaborating on a project, because we love to work …
