Leet'ko'a Shofar - Blowing the Shofar

 The High Holy Days begin in less than two weeks, so it's not too soon to begin preparing the students to recognize Hebrew vocabulary related to the Rosh Ha'shana and Yom Kippur holidays. After briefly reviewing basic commands, I introduced the class both sessions to Hebrew vocabulary relating to the shofar - the major symbol of Rosh Ha'shana - as well as to the custom of eating a round challah to symbolize the cyclical nature of the year. They'll understand these commands very well by the time the holidays begin.

Challah shel Shabbat; Challah agoola shel Rosh Ha'Shana (Shabbat Challah - in my hand; a round challah for Rosh Ha'Shana - photos on the wall)

During our first music session with Joel for the year, we continued the High Holy Days theme with Joel describing the differences between melodies we sing during our Shabbat and weekday services and those used for the same prayers during the High Holy Days. Before teaching us songs relating to renewing our souls, Joel led us in a "warm up" song (with the help of some volunteers).

On a very different note, I began to read the novel "Out of Many Waters" by Jacqueline Dumbar Greene to the class yesterday, at the start of each session. It's a wonderful story which takes place in the year 1654, a year I'm going to ask the students to remember each time I read a chapter in the book to them (every Sunday morning and usually on weekdays as well). I told them that I usually don't care if they remember dates or not, but this particular date is a very important one in Jewish history, and what happened that year affects every one at Temple Isaiah. I'm not giving away the important event yet - as I read the story, I want to see how soon it will take the children to figure out what happened of such consequence to us that year. To give a clue, the story begins in the port city of Recife (in modern-day Brazil), just as the Portuguese have re-conquered the port from the Dutch.

As another clue, I provided the students with background history for this historical novel before beginning to read. 

Finally, I used a few minutes during each session yesterday, to introduce the students to our classroom procedures and to an incentive program I began almost twenty years ago called the "Stumper/Challenge Program." It began as a way for me to deal with my frustration at not having enough time to share many aspects of the Jewish world with my students in the short amount of time we had with each other each week. I began to hang newspaper clippings about Jewish personalities and events on the bulletin boards in my classroom, with sentence strips near each article asking a question which answer could be found in a yellow highlighted section of the article. If the student answers the question correctly, s/he earns 1 sticker. Most questions are "stumpers" where the answer is "given" in the article.  I also hang up sentence strips with "challenges" on them - for example, "Name the 12 tribes of Israel" or "Recite the 15 parts of the Passover seder."  Students who successfully accomplish the "challenge" are given 5 stickers. When a student has collected 20 stickers, s/he has earned a $10 Toys 'R Us gift certificate. Students can earn as many certificates as possible during the course of the year. Students have to give me the answers (not any other teacher); they can do so if they come to class a few minutes early on the weekdays, or during hafsaka (recess) on weekdays. First session students can come 10-15 minutes early on Sundays as well. Challenges, of course, have to be answered in person, but I encourage any student who wants to participate in the program to copy down stumper questions from the bulletin boards in both rooms, and when they get the answers they can call me or e-mail them to me. Some stumpers are worksheets, which students can take home and bring back to earn the sticker(s).

Here's an example of a Rosh Ha'Shana Stumper hanging on our "Holiday" bulletin board in Room 201. Notice the highlighted portions of the article. The answer is somewhere there.