Jan 29
Hello! This is Morah Shterna (the yetzirah – art educator), here to tell you about the process of creating line drawings at the Jewish Enrichment Center. When introducing a new Jewish text to the younger children (N4 through 2nd grade) we often create line drawings to help them follow along with the text. These drawings …
Feb 05
For the past few weeks in Beit Anafim v’Alonim (branches” and “oak trees” for 4th and 5th grades) we’ve been exploring our current theme, לְהִתְפַּלֵל (L’hitpalel) through a text about Channah and her תְּפִלָּה, tefillah (prayer). The text can be found in the first book of Samuel. This week children explored the feelings and ideas …
Jan 22
On Sunday in Beit Anafim v’Alonim (branches” and “oak trees” for 4th and 5th grades), we started our FIRST text of this theme, להתפלל (L’hitpalel). We read from the first book of Samuel 1:11. The beginning of this text talks about Channah and her inability to conceive. She prays to Adonai to give her a …
Apr 27
This week, our Tuesday group of 5th and 6th graders studied gemara. Argued by the ancient rabbis 2nd – 6th century CE, the text has its own distinctive, cryptic style. Gemara is HARD. And it was SO FUN. First we studied the text in pairs to try to figure out the topic sentence, who’s talking, and …
Apr 20
ענפים (Anafim, “Branches” for 3rd-4th grade children) have grown a lot this year. For example, they can sit together and work in חברותא (havruta, text study partnership) to explore a new Rabbinic text, connecting it with their own ideas and their peers’ ideas. That requires a lot of different reading, writing, and collaboration skills, not …
