December 2011
News from Karen's Kita Aleph
The Aleph class has been celebrating the holidays and learning Hebrew letters. The children made beautiful "stained glass" ornaments for our Sukkah, each design incorporating a letter from their names. We have
begun a unit about Shabbat. The kids formed and baked mini-challahs to take home and each made a
decorative challah cover. It is my hope that if Aleph families aren't already celebrating Shabbat together,
you will be motivated to start now! We are studying the letters in the word "Shabbat": Shin, Bet, and Tahv,
and we've learned the two "ah" vowels and how they change the sound a consonant makes. In addition,
we've touched on certain letters relating to the students' names: Nun, Aleph, Mem, Tsadi. It would be great
if parents would help their kids practice these letters/sounds at home.
News from Jackie's Kita Bet
In Kitah Bet this year the focus is on Bible stories and Tzedakah. We are using a wonderful book, Being
Torah, which features stimulating illustrations of young children dressed as the characters in each story!
Being Torah emphasizes student commentary, first from the children in the text, then from our own students
who are making meaning together from the text and from what they hear in class discussions!
We have also been focusing on sound/symbol association, by "feeling" the letter sounds in our mouths, our
throats, our entire bodies, and then using this muscle memory for recognizing the sounds of the aleph bet.
This supports the decoding skills we are learning in the text, Journey Through the Aleph Bet. I encourage
families to engage your children in acting out the aleph bet letters to demonstrate the shapes and sounds,
not on paper, but with their bodies! This will reinforce what they are learning in school and will be fun for you
and your kids.
We are planning to start several tzedakah projects, both school-wide and individual. A fundraiser, which
recycles yogurt containers, has one parent volunteer now but we need one more. This project will enable
students to contribute to our community while learning Hebrew numbers and showing concern for planetary
stewardship. We will be making Tzedakah boxes ("pushkas") for the home so that tudents have a reminder
about giving to others, whether in monetary form or by chesed (acts of loving kindness).
Kita Bet looks forward to classroom visits from parents, whether to observe, help out, or learn with us!
News from David's Kita Dalet
The goal for the year in Kita Dalet is to prepare students for the b'nai mitzvah class. For Hebrew study, we
divide into three groups; Diane, Judith and I work with students to sound out Hebrew consonants and
vowels , then move on to words and phrases and, finally, to whole prayers. With the beginning of a new
Torah cycle after the holiday of Simchat Torah, we opened up the Torah and read the first sentence in
Genesis (bereshit…in the beginning) in both standard and Torah script.
High holidays provided much of the Jewish Life curriculum in the past two months; now we have begun to
explore what is was like to be a Jew during the early middle ages in Europe. It's still quite early in the
school year, but we have made very good progress and I look forward continuing work with this great group
of students. One way you can help us in our studies is to donate (or let us borrow) tefillin. Please bring or
send the tefillin into school and let me know if they are for us to keep or if are to be returned.
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