We started off the week with a big all-school celebration for Simchat Torah. We explained to the children that this holiday celebrates the end of the Torah. Over the past year, we have read each section of the Torah weekly, and now, it has come to an end. Lilah asked, “What happens when it ends? Do we start over?” The holiday of Simchat Torah celebrates the end of the Torah, and the start of a new year of reading the Torah from beginning to end. To celebrate this holiday, we take the Torah out of the ark and read the scrolls. After the reading, the custom is to dance around the synagogues and celebrate. The children had a few opportunities to participate in the traditions of the holiday this week. In our all-school Simchat Torah service, we sang songs about the Torah, listened to a story, and ended our service by dancing around the synagogue kissing the Torahs and getting to see the inside of the scrolls. The children were in awe of the scriptures of the Torah and the way the inside looked. Dylan commented that the outside look so much different from the inside.
Later in the week, we continued our Simchat Torah celebrations during Storah Time with Rabbi Josh. Rather than hearing a story in our classroom, we met Rabbi Josh in the Main Sanctuary, where he stood with an unrolled, open Torah. The scrolls were opened on the reading table for the children to see. Two by two, all of the children had the opportunity to stand at the reading table with Rabbi Josh and view the Torah up close. As each child held the yad and pointed to various lines in the Torah, Rabbi Josh explained that part of the story. We loved seeing the children light up when it was their turn to read the Torah. Ask your child why we use a yad when reading the Torah. We talked a lot about this concept in our class. In addition to all of our Simchat Torah celebrations, Room 8 had a special drawing lesson this week. We have conducted a few drawing lessons over the past couple weeks to teach the children how to draw a complete picture. We noticed that they loved this activity and continued to ask us when we would do another one and what would we learn to draw next. In light of Sukkot and in continuance with learning to draw shapes, we decided on a Sukkah as the focus of the drawing lesson. Ask your child if they can tell you the shape of most sukkahs. Lennon showed particular excitement for this activity and when we began the lesson, he stated, “A sukkah is a square, you know…?” We showed the children step-by-step how to arrange the lines on the page to create a sukkah equipped with a background, foreground, and decoration. Rian pointed out that to be a sukkah there has to be branches on top. Some of the friends chose to draw the branches on top, while others wanted to glue a real branch, or more like a small piece of a branch, to emulate the roof of the structure. Next time you are in Room 8 take a look at their incredible works of art. While it has only been two months of school, our entire class has grown immensely in their ability to sustain their attention, follow directions and complete a realistic drawing. We will continue to listen to the interests of the children as we move forward and see how we can further develop the topic of drawing and more broadly, art. Through listening to conversation amongst your children and questions they ask, we are here to help guide and support their interests and learning. We hope you have a great weekend, and we look forward to starting our lesson on potatoes next week! Shabbat Shalom, Mari and Aaliyah REMINDERS:
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Pre-K Room 8Mari Greifer Archives
March 2020
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