Monday, November 05, 2007
Dear Parents,
I would like to report that things are continuing to go well during our Sunday school sessions. Many, many thanks to the families who have provided us with snacks over the past several weeks! Our bellies have been full which leads to even better learning!
Since I last wrote to you we have learned all about consecration, confirmation and, just this past Sunday, we began a unit on blessings, prayers and rituals. We also discussed the Jewish art form called “micrography”. Micrography consists of tiny writing that takes a form, such as an outline of Jerusalem, a Torah scroll, a Jewish symbol, a famous Jewish personality, etc. The students created a list of different symbols or ritual items related to becoming bar/bat mitzvah and then chose one for their artwork. We then found the v’ahavta in the siddur (prayer book) and used the English words from this prayer to be the writing for the assignment. If you find yourself in the administrative hallway, just before the boardroom, you will find two beautiful examples of microcraphy on display to see where your students got their inspiration. When you come back to class on Sunday, November 18th, I will have everyone’s work on display.
In other exciting news, I would also like to introduce our madrich, Richard Raizes to all of you. Richard began working with us during the second week of school and has been a great match for our group! Richard sits with the students when I am teaching, helps them out when we are working on different projects and makes great suggestions for activities related to our topic of study that I may not have thought of. A great example of this would be just this past Sunday when he suggested that we stop in the chapel, on our way back from collecting siddurim from the sanctuary, and teach the kids how to dress and undress the torah. This really fit in well with our unit of ritual and your children really enjoyed the activity! One of the students had actually done it before and offered to teach his fellow classmates how to do it. After the technique had been demonstrated, every else got a turn.
In upcoming weeks we will continue to learn about prayers and rituals, review the wonderful vocabulary that we are building, and work on our scrapbooks.
Remember that you can contact me at anytime if you have questions or concerns about your son or daughter’s Sunday school experience and, don’t forget…NO Sunday school (or Hebrew school) next Sunday, November 11th!
B’Shalom,
Sarah Avner