Nov 02
This week, Shteelim (“saplings” for Kindergarten) designed felt pieces so we could act out the story of Avraham V’Sara on the Felt Board We sat down and listened carefully to the text, stopping when we heard something we wanted to make We had so many ideas for the felt pieces we wanted to play with! …
Sep 14
This week Shteelim (‘saplings’ for kindergarten) worked on רֹאשׁ הַשָׁנַה (Rosh Hashanah) cards for their families. We traced lots of shapes like a תַפּוּחַ (tapuach– apple), a שׁוֹפָר (shofar), a רִימוֹן (rimon– pomegranate) and a pot of דְּבַשׁ (d’vash– honey). “I’m making mine for my family” “[Mine is for] my mom” While we drew, we thought about why we might give …
May 25
This week we have been filling up our Torah wall! We are all the way down to Ba’midbar (Numbers), which means we’ve heard stories from Bereshit, Shmot, Va’yicrá, and Ba’midbar. Some children consider the Yosef story to be the best!, others really like the Pesach story, or the new donkey story. We have been hunting …
May 18
This week we have been reviewing stories from the Torah that we have heard before… months ago! But our nursery and kindergarten children seem to remember like it was yesterday. We started with Bereshit (the beginning), floated with Noah, remembered Yosef (Joseph), and parted the sea with Moshe (Moses). There are so many stories and so …
Mar 11
This week in Shorashim/Shteelim (nursery and kindergarten) we started learning the story of Purim! While reading a kid-friendly Megilat Esther, children were able to discuss the plot and characters, as well as build parts of the story, make puppets of Haman, King Achashverosh, Mordechai, and Queen Esther, and make masks! We learned about the importance …
May 14
This week in Shteelim, we were able to explore two of our areas of focus – the concept of הפקר (hefker – ownerless) and counting בעברית (b’Ivrit – in Hebrew) – at the same time! In our farming play area, we set out with the new challenge of taking only as much as we need from others’ …
May 07
This week in Shteelim we’ve had a chance to continuing exploring in the agricultural play space, where Shteelim have acted out their preparation for the שמיטה (Sh’mitah – Release) year, as well as what they would do during the year itself. One of the big ideas that I can see has defined Shteelim’s understandings of Sh’mitah is …
Apr 16
This week in Shteelim, we dove in to our final theme of the year, שמיטה (Sh’mitah – Release). Our first week in this theme was guided by learning foundational knowledge about the שמיטה year and the farming process, generating many questions and wonderings about שמיטה, and keeping track of all the new information we learned. To do these …
Apr 08
It’s that time of the year. Since we are in Pesach (Passover), we at the Jewish Enrichment Center started to think about how we were going to count the Omer this year. The Omer is the period of 49 days that some Jews count between Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot. Pesach (Passover) is the way in …
Apr 02
This week in Shteelim, we had nonstop singing, making art about, and playing with מה נשתנה (Mah Nishtanah – The Four Questions). We finished making our fabric banners in יצירתיות (Yetzirah – creativity), which show each of the four questions as represented by the items that are different: מצה (matzah), מרור (maror), שתי פעמים (shtei f’amim – (dip) twice), and מְסֻבִּין …
