Religious School Parent Bulletin
March 7, 2014
Friendly reminders:
Looking for a great way to spend Shabbat? Then join us for Shabbat Family Experience, an interactive, spirit-filled and participatory Shabbat afternoon service Saturday, March 8 at 10:30am in the Epstein Chapel led by children in the Religious School and Tucson Hebrew Academy. Participants lead services, discuss the meaning of prayers, and determine how the teachings from our tradition apply to their lives.
Parents are encouraged to join us for Purim Palooza on Sunday, March 16! There will be a creative Megillah reading at 9:30am, followed by a carnival with games, prizes, face paintingand a bounce house, starting at 10:30am. Lunch platters will be available for a nominal fee starting at 11:00am. This is a mandatory day of religious school which we strongly encourage parents to attend with their children.
TEACHERS' CLASSROOM RECAPS:
Kindergarten and 1st Grade – Renee Hulsey
The kindergarten class worked on the letter “pey” and the 1st Graders worked on “nun.” We also played “Simon Says” in Hebrew and sang our color song with the Hebrew colors. See you next Sunday!
2nd Grade – Bryan Gordon
This week 2nd Grade took a much-deserved break from our fast progress in the textbook and our developing reading, writing and meaning-forming skills, to begin acting out the Purim story in class. I hope to see the whole class at Purim Palooza on the 16th.
3rd Grade – Laura Olesen
The 3rd Graders did a wonderful job at services last Friday! On Sunday, we had our class photo taken and all of the students received their pictures on Tuesday. In Judaics, we finished up Elijah and Mt. Carmel and "mapped it out" on our Israel maps. We all enjoyed a fun assembly on Sunday for Rosh Hodesh! On Tuesday, we began learning about Esther. We are continuing to work on our prayers in preparation for Siddur Dedication. In Hebrew, our class worked on the end of our book and they took home practice pages. They are reviewing prayers from their textbook. Looking forward to another wonderful week!
4th Grade – Elana Israel
This week in Judaics, we began discussing the Ashkenazi Jews, as well as our own family histories. We will be asking our families about our Jewish ancestors and presenting our findings to the class. We also went over the story and traditions of Purim. In Hebrew, we learned new letters “chet,” “chaf” and “final chaf,” and we played many fun reading games.
5th Grade – Courtney DeYoung & Sarah Artzi
It was wonderful to be with so many of you at last week's 3rd-5th Grade Shabbat service and dinner. As always, we were so proud of our students' participation and their overall "menschiness" throughout the evening. Thank you, parents, for making the effort to be there. This week in Judaics, we introduced our next unit which will take us through the end of the year: an exploration of modern-day Israel. We have exciting resources and plans for this unit and look forward to bringing a bit of the special sprit of Israel to our classroom. Shabbat shalom!
6th Grade – MeMe Aguila
The 6th graders discussed the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and debated whether the United States should have participated in those games. In Hebrew, we are working on words for ordering food which will culminate in an end-of-the year field trip to 5th Street Deli when we’ll order in Hebrew.
7th – 8th Grade – Sivan Shahmoon
The 7th and 8th Grade finished watching “The Wave” (a film about a youth group that was created resembling the Hitler Youth Movement) and had a discussion about it.