Religious School Parent Bulletin November 1, 2012
Thank you to all the 3rd grade parents who made reservations for the Kabbalat Siddur (Consecration) Parent Meeting on Tuesday, November 13, 5:30-6:00pm in the Library. If you have not made reservations, please contact Kim.
Please take part in the Turkey Drive which runs November 1-18. We collect money to purchase and deliver Kosher turkeys to our local Jewish Family and Children's Service. You can help by sending your contribution with your child no later than November 15. Thank you for enabling us to continue this annual mitzvah.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Saturday Nov. 10 – Shabbat Family Experience
10:30 am in the Epstein Chapel
Share in this interactive, spirit-filled and participatory service led by children in the Religious School and Tucson Hebrew Academy. There will be a free deli lunch after service featuring singing led by Cantorial Soloist Emily Ellentuck. Everyone is welcome to join in this service. Participants will lead services and discuss the meaning of prayers. The service will feature religious school 6th graders who will act out scenes from the weekly Torah portion. For more information and to RSVP, contact Kim.
Friday, November 30
3rd-5th Grade Shabbat Service and Dinner 5:45pm
Join us for this energetic service led by our 6th-8th graders in the Religious School and THA. After the service we will have a delicious Shabbat dinner. We had 75 6th-8th graders at their service and dinner recently and look forward to an equally good response at this one as well! A letter went home this week for students to sign up for parts in the service. Please send the form at the bottom of the letter back to Rabbi Herman indicating the part that you want. A flyer for the dinner will be given out on Sunday, November 11. Please RSVP by Nov. 26 to Kim.
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Teachers' Classroom Recaps:
Kindergarten/1st Grade-Renee Hulsey
The class had a great time on Sunday learning with our 6th grade buddies. We braided and baked challah together, recited Shabbat blessings and lit candles, drank grape juice and ate our delicious challah! We look forward to more activities with our 6th grade friends. Don't forget to bring tzedakkah each week!
2nd Grade – Natalie Guerin
This week our Bible story was "Isaac and Rebecca" and the commandment story was about "Guarding Your Tongue," how words can be hurtful and to think before you speak. To introduce that, we had fun playing "telephone." The students are all doing so well with Hebrew; that part of our class is now a bit longer to make sure that we finish our book by the end of the year. I encourage the families to use the computer disc that matches our book to help reinforce what the children are learning in class.
3rd Grade – Laura Olesen
The students had another awesome week! They have been learning prayers such as Mah Tovu, Lecha Dodi, V'Shamru, Barchu, and more! They are really doing well at minyan as well. This week they had fun with Hebrew on the computers which match with the chapters they are working on. They are looking forward to doing it again soon. In Judaics, we are studying the Galil in Northern Israel. They are learning about the places in the Galil as well as Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), which we will continue with next week. They will bring home the brochures they made as we focus on different areas.
4th Grade – Rodin Molina
In Hebrew we have finished our section on the Barchu. Students created their first page of the personal prayerbook that they'll be compiling over the year. On Tuesday as students finished their prayerbook pages they began practicing fluency with the next prayers we'll be covering: "yotzer or" and "ma'ariv aravim." We'll be doing games during this section where they try to beat their time at reading the prayers aloud. In Judaics Sunday we discussed the story of Adam and Eve and the importance of free will in performing mitzvot. Students put together skits about choosing to do the right thing in various situations. In class Tuesday students played a game, reviewing information from the first section of the book which we've just completed. We used the last few minutes of class to read a book that had themes of Jewish values.
4th Grade – Sarah Artzi
In Judaics this week, we continued our discussion of the concept of "community" and the many different types of communities to which we all belong. We narrowed our focus down to our Jewish community and the importance it plays in our daily lives. We come together as a community to learn and study, to celebrate holidays and life-cycle simchas (joyous occasions), to pray, and to provide support and comfort. In fact, certain prayers can only be said when there are at least 10 (post-B'nai Mitzvah-aged) Jews gathered, called a minyan. In Hebrew this week, we continued working on the Amidah. The students were given different lines to learn and had to arrange themselves in the order of the prayer. They did a fantastic job! Our Hebrew group will be doing some review work on the Aleph-Bet which emphasis on moving from writing in block to writing in script. Also, don't forget to purchase tickets to the Rick Recht concert on Nov. 12 … we've been listening to his music in class!
5th Grade – Courtney DeYoung
In Judaics we finished our mitzvah posters which are looking great! We also covered the middle of chapter five in the Israel books. The students' enthusiasm is always wonderful! My Hebrew class continued working in Hineni 3 and they did an amazing job. Their confidence with Hebrew reading is greatly improving. I can't wait to help the students improve their Hebrew skills!
6th Grade – MeMe Aguila
On Sunday the 6th grade worked with the kindergarten and 1st graders to make challah, and learn about Shabbat. It was so successful that we are looking forward to more joint projects. We are continuing our study of immigration and looking forward to a field trip in December to Handmaker to talk with the residents about their Jewish roots. On Tuesdays, Rabbi Eisen stops by to talk with the class about their journey to becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah.
7th – 8th Grade – Jacob Kotz
The students discussed the history of Israel from the Crusades through the Ottoman Empire. We also learned about how the British divided the Middle East. Each student represented a country that the British created and we discussed how the different countries were created.