Apr 19
It’s Pesach (Passover)! This week, we get to spend all week celebrating, playing, and creating as a whole Enrichment Center. It’s a lovely way to make the week feel special, and to continue to strengthen our community across age groups. One of the projects children are working on this week is creating the pieces that …
Feb 17
Over the past couple of weeks, the children in Nitzanim v’Anafim (“Buds” for 1st-2nd grades, “Branches” for 3rd grade) have been working with watercolors to tell stories about the שְׁמַע (shema). Their stories have been fascinating, and the ways they’ve discovered how to use watercolors have been just as fascinating. While I offered them several …
Dec 02
It’s חֲנֻכָּה (Chanukah) and the children in שׁוֹרָשִׁים (Shorashim– ‘roots’ for nursery) and שְׁתִּילִים (Shteelim– ‘saplings’ for kindergarten), are fully immersed in חֲנֻכָּה (Chanukah) play! We have had so many opportunities to use our חֲנֻכָּה (Chanukah) vocabulary! We are having חֲנֻכָּה (Chanukah) celebrations! We make latkes, set up the table for guests, “light” the חֲנֻכִּיָה (Chanukiyah) and …
Nov 11
This week in שׁוֹרָשִׁים (Shorashim– ‘roots’ for nursery) and שְׁתִּילִים (Shteelim– ‘saplings’ for kindergarten), we have been working on our theme project for Avraham V’Lot! The children have their hands in every part of the process of designing our paper mâché text-based play space. We began the process by asking children to look at different photos, explore …
Nov 04
This week in Nitzanim v’Anafim (“Buds” for 1st-2nd grades and “Branches” for 3rd grade), we explored the rest of Genesis 18, in which Adonai (God) and Avraham (Abraham) have a conversation about Adonai’s plans to destroy the city of S’dom. Avraham asks, “Will you destroy the righteous, too, along with the wicked?” This was a …
Mar 11
There is a lot of excitement about getting ready for Pesach (Passover) in שׁוֹרָשִׁים (Shorashim– ‘roots’ for nursery) and שְׁתִּילִים (Shteelim– ‘saplings’ for kindergarten). On Sunday, we met in person (outside). We brought out our super big seder plate, so we could work on remembering how to say the names of five main items that might be …
Dec 17
It’s חֲנוּכָּה (Chanukah)! The children in the Tuesday morning section of the Jewish Enrichment Center Family Program, have painted their חֲנוּכִּייוֹת (Chanukiyyot—Chanukah Menorahs)! Every one had its own unique style as every child had a different strategy for painting! So much joyful painting! One of the other special חֲנוּכָּה (Chanukah) experiences this year, was getting …
Nov 19
It’s our favorite time of the theme! Final project time! We’ve been exploring text from Genesis 6-9 for six weeks, and now children are using collage, watercolor, and drawing to wrestle with their biggest questions and ideas. Children are so excited to see each other’s progress and share suggestions for how their peers might show …
Nov 11
Part of how we help children deepen their questions and ideas about the text is through different kinds of creative exploration. This week in Nitzanim (“Buds” for 1st grade), we experimented with a new modality that we will be using for our final projects: collage! The children came up with all sorts of ways to …
Oct 14
Over the past several weeks, we have been using several different strategies to build community through our screens in Nitzanim (“Buds,” for 1st grade). Last week, we imagined what it would feel like to all be in a sukkah together, and the children came up with words like happy, comfy, curious, excited, and cozy. This …
