Dear Parents,
We hope you had a restful long weekend. When school closes for Professional Development Days, we teachers have a wonderful opportunity to learn about things that we can then use in the classroom. It reinvigorates our teaching, and we often take away new ideas to employ as a part of our curriculum. Tuesday was one of those days. On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to have several workshops to help broaden our horizons. We started the morning by having a meaningful conversation with Rabbi Sari Laufer about the intention in Judaic practice, and specifically, the importance of routine. We talked about the process of being grateful for waking up every day and how we should take the time to reflect every morning when we wake up, even if some mornings may be tougher than others. This led us to a greater conversation of how we look at what makes our school Jewish and how we bring that to the forefront of who we are and what we do each day. Erin Naimi, a certified dietician and also a parent in the school, spoke to us about how we can balance the “good” and “bad” foods and how we can raise our children or work with them on developing healthy eating habits (and what healthy eating habits should look like). We also learned from Meri Cherry, a former teacher and now an Art Specialist with her own studio in Tarzana. She shared with us the ideas around Process Art, and the importance of how art work should be about process, and less so on product and what or whether a child brings something home. It is sometimes all about just familiarizing the children with certain materials at hand. She showed us various projects that we were able to do as a staff, and some things that we have already started to bring into the classroom. One of the projects we did with Meri Cherry we presented to the children when they came back from the long weekend. We started with having bowls of salt on the table and glue bottles and grey construction paper. With some guidance, the children squeezed the glue onto the paper and shook out some salt on top of the glue. They then shook the excess salt off the paper. We set the paper aside to let it dry and next week will use liquid watercolor on top to create an amazing effect with the salt dispersing the watercolor. Mazel tov to the Heyman Family on the birth of Emilia Clair, who was born on Saturday, January 13th. Thank you to Max for bringing in yummy pink cookies to celebrate the birth of his baby sister. Thank you to Kayla and her Family who helped us celebrate our Shabbat. We went to Shabbat services and had a front row seat to sing along with Jen and Rabbi Sari. The children love singing along to "There's a Dinosaur Knocking At My Door" and other Shabbat songs. Shabbat Shalom, Debbie, Erika and Gali Reminders: Evan is our Shabbat Boy on Friday, January 26th.
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