Following Rabbi Greninger's introduction, all the students joined the teachers and Avodah TA's in the Oneg Room, while the parents met with Rabbi Greninger and Cantor Korn, who shared important information, not the least of which was the process relating to the choosing of Bar and Bat Mitzvah dates. They were also given a checklist and timeline in order to know what is expected of them beginning a year before the service up through 1-2 weeks before it.
In the Oneg Room, students and teachers began our own "journey" - this one looking back at the past, reviewing Torah stories taught in the 3rd and 4th grades. The focus of this workshop for our students was the Torah itself, since very soon each student will be assigned a "parsha" (portion) of the Torah to chant and explain during his/her Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Our review took the form of a "Torah Olympics."
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| Erin, our Shira teacher, introduced the purpose of the activities, then divided the students into 4 groups: their first task was to decide upon a "team name" relating to the Torah. |
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| The team names decided upon were the Maccabees, the Escapists, the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs. (OK - we didn't quibble with the fact that the Maccabees aren't in the Torah - in fact, they're not even in the Hebrew Bible, and we didn't ask how the "Escapists" got their name.) Maimone, our Y'tzira teacher, is looking over the 4 teams, like a general reviewing his troops. |
Abraham's wife, Sarah, lived to be 127 years old. So to represent each year of her life, our next competition asked each team to try to be the first to complete 127 jumping jacks, either having each member of the team doing 127 of them, or sharing the responsibility.
The Torah tells us that Abraham's and Sarah's son, Isaac, became blind in his old age. What better way to review this fact than to have a Blindfold Race!
Isaac's servant, Eliezer, was sent to Haran to search for a wife for Isaac. As soon as he reached a well there, Rebecca came and gave him and all his camels water to drink. He chose her to be Isaac's wife. The important question for us in our review was "How did she carry all that water?" In a wheelbarrow of course!
Our third patriarch, Jacob, had to flee his twin brother, Esau, after he stole Esau's birthright inheritance by fooling his blind father, Isaac, into thinking he was Esau, and receiving Isaac's blessing as his firstborn son and rightful heir. As he fled, he stopped overnight in a place named Beth El, and there he had a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder that reached up to the heavens and down to the Earth. Our students were asked to assume the role of the ladder and to "pass an angel up and down the ladder." (The angel took the shape of a JQuest staff T-shirt.)
Leaving the Book of Genesis, in which all the above stories are written, we held a Book of Exodus "Trivia Contest" during which I asked the entire group questions relating to stories in that book, then offered multiple choices for the correct answer. Almost everyone knew the answers without even waiting to hear all the choices!
Since we were beginning to run out of our allotted time for the Torah Olympics, we quickly segued into the Book of Leviticus. In the middle of the book (which itself is in the middle of the Torah, being the 3rd of the 5 books of the Torah), is a passage called the "holiness code," which teaches us how to be a holy people. For this part of the Olympics, one person from each team was given an act of holiness written down on a strip of paper, and was asked to act it out charades style (no words - no props!).
DO NOT DO MAGIC! (Tell that to Houdini, a very famous Jewish magician!)
When it was finally time to return to the Social Hall and join the parents, a very special gift was handed out to each fifth grader. It was "The Five Books of Moses", an easy-to-read Torah translation by Sol Scharfstein, which will hopefully prove to be helpful to our students as they prepare their assigned Torah portions.
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| In order to familiarize our students and parents with how to find passages in book forms of the Torah, we held "the World's Shortest Torah Scavenger Hunt," in which families were given specific passages to find using the "Book Chapter: verse" method (e.g. Genesis 1:1-31 = the Book of Genesis Chapter 1: verses 1-31 is where you can find the story of Creation). |
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| Torah Scavenger Hunt worksheets were given to each family to fill out together. |
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| This is my favorite part of the workshop - getting to see my students together with their parents. |
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| It provides an added dimension for me to watch parents and children interacting, to help me form a more complete picture of each of my students. |
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| I'm happy to report that almost all our Edot fifth grade families participated in the workshop. |
Our sixth graders and their families met during second session, for the first of their 3 scheduled B'nai Mitzvah Prep sessions this year. The goal of this workshop was to give the students and parents an opportunity to share their ideas of what becoming an adult entails, as well as to review the schedule for requirements. While the students moved into the Oneg Room with the teachers for community games which would allow them to get to know each other even better, clergy and parents met to discuss the importance of community building, the Kiddush luncheon and partnering of families sponsoring the Kiddush together, as well as to share ways to get more involved in our Isaiah community.
Please be sure to keep the following dates open for the upcoming fifth and sixth grade family B'nai Mitzvah Prep workshops this year:
Saturday, February 3 - 6th grade
Sunday, February 4 - 5th grade
Sunday, April 29 - 5th grade family visit to Contemporary Jewish Museum
6th grade BMP Workshop
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