May 09
One of the things I love most about doing projects with children is being together in that moment of new insight. It’s like a jolt of lighting that flashes between all of us. I can’t know in advance what the children will find striking about the content we’re exploring. So when that connection happens, we …
May 17
It’s May! In May, kids are bursting with energy. They start trying things they’d never have done a few months ago, and not the good stuff, either. (I didn’t catch a photo, but yes, those were our mature, responsible fifth and sixth graders playing a “game” of stealing crackers off of each other’s napkins yesterday.) The month of May can challenge …
Mar 02
Do middle schoolers still play? Not, play organized sports games, or board games, or video games. But do they still want to let their imaginations run and use their hands to create and get silly together? Just a quick look around the middle school room this week said it all. Here we are… …making a rocking chair, …
Feb 23
It’s great to be a middle schooler! So capable, so responsible, so caring of everyone around them. And SO engrossed in their projects that we couldn’t drag them away at the end of the day! We got right to work drafting our projects. We tested out building ideas. Here’s the part where you …
Nov 30
Something new is happening with our 5th – 7th graders: they want it all. Our theme texts for this age group were Genesis 12 – 25, more text than we’ve ever swallowed in a single theme, and still, these children are reaching out to grab more text: texts we’ve read over the last 7 years and …
Nov 16
Read the text and talk about it. Build, draw, collage, or act out the text. Read more text, argue, read it again, show all the faces that Sarah and Hagar make to each other (what is “contempt,” anyway?), and go back to the text again to make our points. 2. Notice: what’s something about the …
Oct 27
We all live in Chicago. How did your family end up in Chicago? Tell a story about your great-grandparents. Where does your name come from? What’s a value that has been important to your family for several generations? This week during Middle School Workshop, we told each other stories of where we’re from. It’s …
Oct 14
For the past month, our sixth and seventh graders have been planning a Sukkot celebration for the entire Jewish Enrichment Center. Finally, our big day arrived! What a scramble to get everything ready! After all of our prep work was done, our language for giving instructions to younger children rehearsed, we took some time to …
Aug 28
Jewish Enrichment Camp was a blast! As children shared the projects they’d worked on all week, one child took the iPad and made a video of the projects and the great feeling of accomplishment in the room. So cool! Another child – a third grader! – wrote an introduction for visitors to all of the projects. …
May 18
This week in אלונים (“Oak trees,” for 5th and 6th grades), we’ve been busy working on our final projects for the year! Our final project prompt is: Tell the story of your encounter with a big idea or question this year. Children are working independently or in pairs to identify a big question or idea …
