Sunday, October 26th

Parents!  Another Sunday with your kids! Everyday I appreciate them more and more.  Last week we began to explore Jewish immigration to the US at the turn of the century.  As a follow-up to that lesson, today we had a special guest speaker! The synagogue's Executive Director, Barry Nove, came and spent an hour with us sharing his family's own immigration story.  Barry has researched the immigration process in depth and has even written a book about the Jewish Ellis Island experience.  He came loaded with photos, original documents and  anecdotes.  Ask your kids about the immigrants and bananas!

We left Barry to join Chef Elliot in the kitchen for cooking.  Today we made butternut squash and apple soup. It was warm and delicious.  Check out the pictures below! 

Here are some Hebrew words we learned today in case you want to follow-up at home: kitchen (mitbach), strength (oz), none (eyn) , like you (camocha), sovereignty (malchutecha),  generation (dor), forever and ever (l'olam v'ed).  

See you Wednesday!

L'hitraot,

Morah Mikey

 
 

 

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Shalom l'kulam!

I would first like to shout a hearty MAZEL TOV to Dylan Holzman!  His Bar Mitzvah was Saturday...marking the first in the class! Yasher Koach Dylan!

Now to this Sunday...a whirlwind!

Our day started with Hebrew.  The holidays are over and its time to start rolling with our Saturday Morning Service prayers.  This week's focus:  Ein Kamocha. We recite Ein Kamocha to mark the beginning of the Saturday morning Torah service.  This prayer is meant to build congregational anticipation for the Torah reading.  For the Bar/Bat Mitzvah the prayer is meant to prepare our hearts and our minds for the coming reading.  Much like we anticipate our B'nai Mitzvah with study and preparation, so we anticipate the Torah reading with Ein Kamocha.

We moved from tefillah into judaics as we began to explore the great migration of Eastern European Jews to the United States - the Land of Opportunity.  What was pushing us away from Europe and what was pulling us toward the US?  What challenges did we face? What was the journey like?  Once we arrived, where did we go and what did we do?  Next week our very own Barry Nove will come and present to the class about his family's immigration experience.  He has written a book about this story and it is a treat to hear his retelling of the story.  He even comes in costume!

I have sent the kids home with a mission.  I want your families to discuss your individual immigration stories. When did your family arrive?  From where did you come?  What drove your family to leave home for a far-away land?    

We closed our day in the kitchen with Chef Elliot.  We made caramel apples to celebrate the new year and the fall harvest!  The kids loved it!  The apples were delicious and the company sweet.

REMINDER! Our next TeenConnect event will be this Saturday, October 25th from 7-9pm.  The kids should meet at Monster Mini-Golf in Jessup, MD for pizza and putt putt!  Costumes are encouraged! $12 per attendee!

Have a wonderful week! Shavua Tov!
Morah Mikey

Sukkot!

Today was our sukkah party!  It was REALLY fun.  I may have over-sugared your children and, for that, I am so sorry. 

We began class by talking about Sukkot.  Why do we celebrate?  How do we celebrate?  We learned how to shake the lulav and etrog.  We learned the proper building dimensions and qualifications for the sukkah structure.   We learned the prayer that we recite when we sit in the sukkah and we talked about the tradition of ushpizin (the Aramaic word for "guests").  

Then the real fun began! Using graham crackers, pretzels, frosting, and LOTS of candy the kids each constructed their very own sukkah.  SO MUCH SUGAR.  It was so cool to see the finished projects. Everyone came at the project a little differently and everyone was really proud of their creations...even our madrichot participated. Just like a true sukkah, intended for impermanence, so were our little edible edifications.  As quickly as they went up...they came down...because we ate them. 

To close, we enjoyed a meal of falafel in the synagogue sukkah while we played Sukkot Jewpardy.  We had a blast!


Here is the evidence of what once was...

  

 

  

 

 

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B30gfYBvbYfGamNxTGtzY05EZXM&usp=sharing

For those of you whose kids attended our first TeenConnect event on Saturday...thank you! It was wonderful. It was great to spend quality time together outside of the classroom!  Our next event is October 25th! Monster Mini-Golf!