Game On!

The Edot students spent the final week of school before Pesach playing games. During the weekday sessions, we reviewed the material covered during our Bene Israel (Jews of India) unit of study by playing "In the Manner of the Word."  This is a role-playing game which involves everyone in the class as volunteers and audience. To prepare for the game, we reviewed what we had learned about the Bene Israel of India. Students volunteered information, and I wrote each piece of information in the form of a complete sentence on the board. We narrowed the information down to 10 sentences. I then asked the students to give me 10-15 adverbs, which I wrote on the board next to the sentences. To play, a volunteer steps outside the classroom, with another volunteer guarding the door. A third volunteer then goes up to the board and silently points out one of the adverbs until everyone in the classroom knows which word is the chosen one. The door guard then lets in the volunteer who stepped out. This volunteer then goes up to the "stage area" in front of the board, and chooses a volunteer who will act out (no words allowed!) a sentence chosen by the first volunteer "in the manner of the word" (the adverb). The first volunteer gets 3 tries (3 separate volunteers and 3 separate sentences) to figure out which adverb was chosen. I don't think we stopped laughing while we played.

The "B.I." stands for the Bene Israel in the sentences on the board

The B.I. eat Malida rice dishes during the festival of the same name "menacingly"?

...and the word is..."Jewishly!" The B.I. were shipwrecked off the coast of India...Jewishly? 

No trouble getting volunteers in this game!

On Sunday, we reviewed the 15 parts of the seder ceremony in our Student Haggadahs, then reviewed everything we had learned during the second semester in our Hebrew Through Movement, Jewish History/Edot, Siddur (Prayer book)/B'rachot (Blessings), and Jewish holiday/Jewish calendar units of study by playing "The Shekel Game."  This group betting game is a hit with the students; I try to play it every 6 weeks or so.  It's fun for the students and gives me a chance to see how many of the students recall important pieces of information in each unit of study (if a lot of students can't recall the information, it tells me it's time to review!). What's nice is that in every group, there are "experts" in different units of study, so everyone contributes and everyone learns.

Lets' see - do we bet 1 Theodore Herzl, 2 Chaim Weizmann's, or 10 Moses Montefiore's?

A Hebrew Through Movement question - in this case, the entire group has to respond as follows: La'koom (get up) v' la'shevet al ha'shoolchan (and sit on the table)

Recorder and treasurer figuring out how much they  have to know how much they can bet

20 seconds left - what's the answer?!

I hope you've all had a wonderful Pesach holiday. We return to school on Tuesday/Wednesday, April 9th/10th, at which time we will observe Yom Ha'Shoah - Holocaust Memorial Day  - in our Edot classroom (Yom Ha'Shoah is this coming Monday, April 8th - the 28th day of Nisan on the Jewish calendar).