CBJ Religious School. Newsletter. Helping Others One Mitzvah at a Time. Dalet Explores Key Jewish Tools

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1 T O D A H R A B A H : Thank you to Ronna Leibach for a wonderful mini Mitzvah Day Thank You to Rabbi Pivo and Hazzan Weisberg for hosting the Aleph and Bet Clergy Dinners Thank You to all the Parent Chaperones for helping out the Gimel- Dalet Kallah Thank you to all the Parents Volunteers who have helped out in all the school activities Thank you to Men s Club for helping our students decorate the Sukkah CBJ Religious School D E C E M B E R K I S L E V First grade has been busy! Each week we learn new letters of the Aleph Bet and practice them in our centers, machberet, and by working together to make our bodies into the shapes of the letters. We spend a lot of time learning about mitzvot. We started by learning about Derech Eretz. We made a class book about being peacemakers and not peacebreakers in the classroom. We have a classroom Derech Eretz jar that is almost full!! Every time we see behavior that shows Derech Eretz in the classroom, the students put a pom pom in the jar. When the jar is full, they get to plan something special to do in the classroom. We are on track to be planning our first special event for our last Sunday before winter break! Newsletter We also had the amazing opportunity to help families over Rosh Hashanah by delivering food baskets for Maot Chitim. We were all humbled by the experience. We ve been having fun learning our stories from the Torah in different ways. We made our own whale to talk about Jonah and the Whale and made puppets to act out the story of Ruth and Naomi. We enjoyed tying in the story of Ruth and Naomi to helping the hungry in our own community. We created adorable napkin holders and placemats to be placed in our Thanksgiving food basket for a family in need. Finally, we learned that there are 613 different mitzvot we are supposed to be doing in our daily lives. Wow! That means V O L U M E 1 0 I S S U E 1 Helping Others One Mitzvah at a Time we are constantly thinking about doing a mitzvah every day! We also tested out the theory that there are as many pomegranate seeds as there are mitzvot in the Torah. We each had a chance to count some pomegranate seeds. We actually came up with over 700 seeds in our pomegranate! That s a whole lot of mitzvot! - Erica Veronie, First Grade Teacher Dalet Explores Key Jewish Tools Our Dalet year began with a trip to HagWarts, where the students went to various stations to learn new things about key Jewish tools. The stations included common items traditionally used in Judaism. After completing verses to the Project Etgar song, along with choreography, they shared them with the other students. They worked in groups to give amazing presentations on the various books of the Sifrei Kodesh. This included web pages and worksheets they wrote themselves to help others understand their key Jewish tools. They even learned how the Sifrei Kodesh are still relevant today. In addition, the students had wonderful discussions about the proper treatment of animals according to Judaism. They presented their opinions in regards to scientific research using animals. These presentations included public service announcements, illustrated highway billboards, and jingles for the radio. Recently, the students began a unit on Friendship. During this unit, they will discuss what it means to be a good friend and how it relates to Judaism. - Michele Sussman & Marc Sender, Dalet Teachers

2 P A G E 2 Who Are The People In Our Family? Second Graders and their families considered the question of Judaism s family tree in our annual multi-generational My Mishpacha Program. As Jews, we believe that we are the literal and figurative descendants of Abraham and Sarah, the first Jews. We trace our spiritual lineage to a biblical mishpacha or family which began with them. Rabbi Pivo taught us about the promises made to Abraham about how numerous his people would be. We learned that we as Jewish parents and Jewish kids are part of that promise. We are the stars that G-d pointed out to Abraham in the night sky when Abraham was told that his people would be as numerous as the stars. To illustrate our connection to our Jewish family tree, our families made beautiful family trees labeled with the Hebrew words for mom, dad, brothers and sisters and grandparents, too. We were able to show the people who are special to us with photographs. Many of us included our kelev (dog) or hatul (cat) on our family trees. Rabbi Pivo also taught us that Abraham and Sarah were told by G-d to leave the home and travel to a land that he would show them, the land of Israel. We then considered all the places we have lived and our families have lived as far back as we could remember by marking a big map of the world with tabs push pins to show our places. Our families have come from all over! Our names connect us to our families and the people who came before us. The kids have discovered that many of their names were given in memory of someone whom their parents loved and wanted to remember. The kids learned that their Hebrew names are connected to their parents and that they will be called to the Torah one day as bat or ben of their parents Hebrew names. We are learning more about our Torah family as each week we explore the parasha. We find we are adding members by birth and marriage just about each week. I hope that Second Graders and their families have found wonderful places to display the Family Trees they made during the program. - Lisa Ribot, Second Grade Teacher Heh Visits Chesed In Judaica we have been learning that Jews have a responsibility not only to ourselves but others as well. Ask you children about where our responsibility begins and where it goes from there. We visited the Chesed food pantry in Lincolnwood, and I would highly recommend making an appointment as a family to stock shelves. It is an amazing facility and an experience that you will want to do over and over again. A big thank you to Mrs. Duvel and Mr. Pacernick for helping out that day and keeping an eye on me, the kids were great as usual. In Hebrew we have started writing children's picture books, and they are starting off terrific. As always if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. - Natalie Gurin & Sandra Zussman, Heh Teachers

3 V O L U M E 1 0 Aleph Busts the HTM Moves (Hebrew through Movement) P A G E 3 The Aleph classes have been participating in a new program called HTM. You may have heard the initials from your student. Hebrew Through Movement is a natural way to learn simple and basic vocabulary words and commands by moving and doing in a positive and fun environment. Classes spend about 10 minutes every session reviewing old words and learning new ones. In the future, the classes will be advancing to vocabulary words for holidays and prayers. The students are really enjoying this new program! Here are some action shots caught on the move!!! - June Fox & Peggy Weiner, Aleph Teachers Gimel takes on Marc Chagall Mikveh, Marc Chagall, Paperclips, Israel s coastal cities and southern region, and current events oh my! The Gimel class has been busy, busy busy! The Gimel class has been studying Jewish lifecycle, and learned about the Mikveh (ritual bath) in respect to adoption and Jewish conversion. The yeladim will continue to learn about the Mikveh as well as continue their journey along the Jewish lifecycle. Marc Chagall was a Jewish impressionist artist who, among many other accomplishments, created the magnificent stained-glass windows housed in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem s New City. The Gimel class learned about the 12-tribes of Israel, and the symbols associated with each of these tribes. The students also studied Marc Chagall s stainedglass windows depicting each of these tribes. The students have now begun creating their own Chagall-inspired stained-glass windows. The yeladim were asked to pick one tribe and their symbols and draw them on their window. Students were also asked to add other Judaic symbols that are meaningful to them, as well as write the name of the tribe in Hebrew. Students then used a heavy-paint to outline their window. They then added color & life to their windows, which can then be prominently displayed in every Gimel household! The Gimel class also watched the movie Paperclips, which is a documentary about a group of students in Whitwell, Tennessee. These students learned about the Holocaust and the dire results of baseless hatred and prejudice. The Gimel class continues to find the most interesting current-events relating to Israel and our local Jewish community. One recent current event was spoke about the amazing medical advancements coming out of Israel! - Jodi Levit & Shira Sender, Gimel Teachers

4 P A G E 4 Kindergarten Dives Right Into the Year Our Kindergarten class has been busy, busy, busy. We jumped right into the year with the High Holidays. Besides eating apples and honey and round challah, each of the yeladim had the chance to try sounding two shofarot: one regular sized, and one really long shofar. Next, we visited the Sukkah and made beautiful stained glass fruit to decorate it. On Simchat Torah, we participated in the hakafot and received an aliyah in honor of our Consecration. We examined our class Torah and learned about all of the different parts, and what it takes to write a Torah. We were each a sofer and wrote our own Torah letters on special parchment with special black ink and a quill pen. We have learned about Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, and Abraham, Sarah and Isaac. Right now we are learning about the miracles of Chanukah. Do you know what it means to be Jewish? We do! Do you know about God? We do! We even drew pictures of what we think God looks like. We are learning about the mitzvot, including tzedakah and bikkur cholim. We really love music with Alicia and Sarah, and are happy that Ari and Miriam helps us in class! - Debbie Weiss, Kindergarten Teacher Bet Make Mezzuzot The Bet students all worked hard to master learning to read and understand Shema/V'ahavta. Coming from Deuteronomy, the words of the prayer command us to love God and then gives us ways to show our love for God. One of these ways is to put the words of the prayer on the doorposts of our home; we know this as putting up mezuzot (mezuzahs). The Bet students each created their own mezuzah case using acrylic cases and air drying clay to design a mezuzah that was unique and personally meaningful! - Judy Jury & Batya Kogan, Bet Teachers C B J R E L I G I O U S S C H O O L N E W S L E T T E R

5 VOLUME 10 PAGE School Hanukkah Program 5

6 Gimel-Dalet Kallah