Apr 08
The children in Shalom Chaverim (“Welcome, Friends!”) spent time getting to know the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Pesach this week. Together, we explored the question– “What do we see on the Seder plate?” The children examined real Seder plates, and incorporated them into their play. They also explored the symbols on the plate …
Feb 11
This week in Shalom Chaverim, the children were busy exploring Hebrew letters together. There were Hebrew letters to investigate on the scroll tucked inside a mezuzzah! There was even a Hebrew letter right on the front of every mezuzzah we investigated– the letter shin, for Shema. Of course, there are so many different things to …
Jan 20
Tu B’Shevat is a special holiday for young children. The past two weeks in Shalom Chaverim have been all about exploring trees, growing things, and planting. Look at all of the wonderful things we did! There were trees to count, to touch, and to press into play dough. We even built our own trees using …
Dec 17
This week in Shalom Chaverim, the children spent one last session together exploring the sights, sounds, tastes, and symbols of Hanukkah. Even though Hanukkah is over, it is exciting to observe the children connecting to ideas about the holiday in ways that have deepened over the past few weeks together. When we first began exploring …
Nov 05
This week in Shalom Chaverim, the children began an exploration of Shabbat. Of course, the way young children explore just about any concept is through rich sensory exploration– so, together with our grown ups, that’s exactly what we did. Through stories and songs and games, we heard about some of the special foods Jewish people …
Oct 21
For the past two weeks, the zero-three year olds and their grown-ups in Shalom Chaverim have been investigating a special Jewish book– the Torah! We unrolled a Torah together, and peered inside. We discovered lots of Hebrew letters written on soft parchment! We cared for our own (toddler-friendly!) Torah by building it an aron hakodesh …
