Shabbat Shalom, Room 7 Families!
The children watched with fascination as the sukkah was being built just outside our classroom. “When can we go inside?” some of them asked. “What tools are they going to use?” another added. “It looks like a house,” some added. “I see three walls!” a child shared. They were actively engaged in observing its construction, and when finished, were eager to enter the new space to have a look around. “It’s big!” one child remarked. Another suggested, “Let’s eat snack in the sukkah!” And so we enjoyed our morning snack under the canopy of leaves, looking around at some of the decorations that other classes had already begun to hang in the sukkah. “Can we make decorations too?” a few of them inquired. We set out materials for the children to begin creating adornments. “I’m making a flower for the sukkah,” one child offered. During our Storah Time, Rabbi Josh brought a Lulav and Etrog into the sukkah and sat with the children to share the meaning behind these holiday symbols. “They all remind us of different parts of our body,” he explained. Rabbi Josh went on to say that the Lulav is tall and straight like our spines, and reminds us to stand up for our friends. The Etrog is shaped like our heart and is sweet on the inside. It serves as a reminder that we should be kind to people, “to be sweet to our friends.” We also enjoyed practicing songs in the sukkah with our music teacher, Maestro. “When you look at our sukkah, what looks the same as the house you live in?” Maestro asked the children. “It has a roof!” one child answered. “And it has walls,” added another. Maestro then asked the children to observe what might be different in how a Sukkah is built versus the home they lived in. “You can see through the roof and the walls!” one child exclaimed excitedly. Maestro explained that the Sukkah is built so that we have shade but we can still see out into the world and see the stars and moon at night. After music with Maestro in the sukkah, we took a walking field trip over to the sanctuary to view the third grades’ sukkah creations. We marveled at the variety of imaginative materials used to build the sukkahs and wondered how long it might have taken to construct them. The children finished this busy week of celebration by visiting the Farmers’ Market to purchase a variety of fruits using their Tzedakah. We read and discussed the book, “A Circle of Smiles,” which is the story of the organization in Israel where our Tzedakah money is donated. The children learned how their contributions are going to “Beit Issie,” a school for children with disabilities, and understood from our conversation that these children have needs that may be different from our own. We would like to thank Carolina, Vito’s mom, who joined us for our first visit to the library, where she read a wonderful story about Sukkot. Carolina returned the next day to make challah dough with the children. We feel grateful to have so many parents volunteer their time to enhance meaningful experiences for the children in our classroom community.
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