Gimel Goings On

Posted on November 13, 2016

Shalom Kitah Gimel,

Gimel students have been hard at work over the last couple of weeks with many exciting things!

Hebrew
Students are moving full steam ahead with learning to read and sing the Birkot Hashachar and I am excited to see that many are utilizing Google Voice.  I just love getting those calls and listening to your son/daughter reading!

Homework Calendar
Please remember to initial your child’s homework calendar whenever they read to you.  Also, even though the calendar says call Google Voice on a Friday, students are welcome to call any day during the week and Sunday.

Station Rotation
Last Sunday students participated in different station rotations during Hebrew.  There were three stations:

1. Reading Station where they met with me to review lines learned in Birkot Hashachar and to learn new lines.
2. Game Station:  Students played a game called “Roll a Word” where they roll a die and read the word it lands on.  All the words were from Birkot Hashachar.
3. Independent Work Station:  Students worked on a word find activity where they had to look for specific letters and vowels in the first of the Birkot Hashachar.

Torah
We began exploring the concept of courage in the story of the midwives who saved Moses’ life. Students completed journal entries where they described what courage looks like, feels and sounds like to them.  For a movement activity students did “trust falls” in pairs and then as a class discussed what gave them the courage to fall.  Next week we will read and discuss the story of the midwives through role play and conversation, and talk about how being part of a community can give us courage.

All School Birkot Hashachar Quilt
We began our exciting morning with an all school active Tefillah!  Students were then divided into groups to put their handprints onto the border of our quilt.

Back in the classroom we talked about what we are looking forward to about the day and some of the things we are grateful for in our lives.  Ideas such as friends, family, food, water, air and books came out of this conversation.

Gimel class will be focusing on 4 of the morning blessings for the quilt, which thank G-d for taking care of different aspects of our lives.

Hevruta (Group) Study
Students were divided into 4 groups and each group was given a worksheet to complete about the blessing assigned to their group.  Students were asked to think about how their blessing looks by color and shape, how it feels by thinking about its importance, and how it sounds by thinking about instruments, animal souunds and sounds in nature.  They then used this information to start designing their panel on newsprint paper.  Next week we will reflect on the designs, finalize our designs and start transferring them on to the fabric panel and outline them with glue.

I can’t wait to see the final product!

Shalom

Elana