Shalom Religious School Parents!

The Kindergarten Class enjoyed music with Mrs. Rose and learned about the Sh'ma. They learned about Shabbat and how God rested on the 7th day after spending 6 days creating the earth. They learned about that Shabbat goes from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. They even practiced lighting the Shabbat candles and saying the prayer over the candles to welcome Shabbat. They ended their class by talking about Tzedakah and making their own tzedakah boxes.

The 1st Grade class continued learning about the Torah this week. They made their very own Torah covers, yads and Torah breast-plates. They also enjoyed learning about the Shema and its blessings with Mrs. Rose in music class.

The 2nd Grade class dove into their regular curriculum now that the High Holy Days have ended. The students had an introduction to the actual physical Torah itself and gathered around the Torah with Rabbi Debbie. They learned about dressing the Torah. They studied the 1st book of the Torah, Genesis Each student drew their own day of creation.

The 3rd Grade Hebrew class continued working through their lessons in the Alef-Bet Quest program. They also played the game, "Around the World" with Hebrew flash cards. They are starting to read! Students are encouraged to be using their CDrom at home during the week! In 3rd Grade Religious School, the class split into stations and learned about respect and then wrote and decorated beautiful acrostic poems about God and what God means to everyone. They also went on a Judaic Scavenger hunt all around TBS!

The 4th Grade Hebrew class started working in the actual prayer book today, starting to become familiar with some basic prayers and concepts. They also all got new Mitkadem binders in which to keep their Hebrew work. The Religious School class learned about the "Am Yisrael," the people of Israel, the "Eretz Yisrael," the land of Israel, and the "brit" or covenant. They discussed the relationship between the Torah and the Jewish people. Each student was given his or her own Chumash (printed Hebrew/English Bible) to look up verses and become more familiar with their own "personal Torah."

The 5th Grade Hebrew class kept working to refresh their Hebrew skills. They studied the "Barchu" out of the prayerbook. They did a class project entitled "Barchu Around the Horn." The kids did a great job and really enjoyed their studies today. The 5th Grade Religious School Class continued their study of Jewish history and learned about the beginning of the Roman occupation of Israel and the causes that led up to the revolt and Massada.

The 6th Grade Hebrew classes did fun stuff today. Both classes worked on reading, understanding, chanting and learning the Torah blessings. Everyone did a great job with the difficult words and the melody. Class Aleph spent some time getting to know one another by discussing their week, while the other class continued their "Hebrew phrase of the week." The 6th Grade Religious School class talked about the poem "The Butterfly" from the CHAI curriculum and discussed how it is a hopeful poem written in a time of great tragedy. Next week, the 6th Grade class will be split into two sections - watch for an email about this on Tuesday!

The 7th Grade class had a great time in class today. They learned about the concept of "Hineini" of saying, "here I am" to help heal the world. They talked about things they do every day in school and at home that make a statement about their Jewish identity. They also sang some great camp songs with Sam!

The High School Classes

• Seinfeld to South Park: Today's class we watched small clips of a Seinfeld episode and finished discussing their unit on stereotypes on television and specifically in a character in the Seinfeld show.
• Tattoo Jews: Today the Tattoo Jews class continued their lesson on combating evangelism in schools by other students and teachers. They role-played different situations and learned about appropriate Jewish responses when they are confronted about being Jewish
• Pray Ball: during class today the Pray Ball class had a great conversation about Role Models and Jewish Ethics in sports today.
• Tikkun Olam Green Class: Today they started planting their Fall vegetable garden at the Temple near the creek. They are preparing the vegetable garden now to seed and harvest next summer. Today they marked the area of the garden and started digging!

CHUGIM!

• Today was our 3rd Day of Chugim! Ask your child which Chug he or she is attending during this first 6 week block!
• Jewish Movie Production
• Jewish Girl Talk
• Religious School Band
• Jewish Comedians
• Manaism (Judaism for Guys)
• Modern Hebrew
• Mural Making
• Jews and Sports
• Tikkun Olam

Have a great week!

L'Shalom,

Rabbi Benjy