Such a busy day! We were so lucky to have Rabbi Victor Mirelman join us today to help the students find the bible story they each want to research and reflect on. We talked about stories dealing with sibling rivalry, dreams and visions, heroes, heroic flaws, spies, deceit, wisdom and so much more! Each of the students chose a story they wanted to learn more about and use for their Bible Study. In the next couple months, I will be presenting each story to the class (as well as some of my personal favorites) and helping the students research and understand the commentary on their story. Ask your child what story or theme they chose and why they picked the one they did. Everyone made a great choice!
Most of our day was spent discussing Bible stories and making the difficult decision of what to focus on. After our bagel break, however, we just barely squeezed in enough time to get our individual blogs started. On the right side of this blog's screen, you can see the beginning of each student's first blog post. If you click on their post, it will take you directly to their blog. We rushed today to get the blogs started, but in the coming weeks we'll be adding pictures, personal profiles and much much more content and reflection. Students can feel free to add to their blog during the week. In fact, if any student did not get to finish his/her blog post today, they should finish it before next Sunday.
Here are the links to each student's blog. Feel free to click on the link and check out what each student has to say about their family roots so far.
Auggie
Callie
Lucas
We didn't have time today to put together our class binders. I will put them together tonight and bring them to the Rosh Hashanah service tomorrow morning. So anyone who is at the service can get their binder tomorrow. I can hold onto any other binders for next time.
Unfortunately, I will not be in class next Sunday but David will be here and he will be presenting on the Spanish Inquisition. Students should bring in their packet that David gave them last week. Don't worry, once we get the binders to you, all this paperwork will be much easier to keep track of.
Have a great rest of your Sunday and a wonderful new year! I look forward to everything we are going to accomplish this year.
Becca
*Cross your fingers for the last 4 minutes of this Colts game. Go Colts!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Hello parents of B'Nai Mitzvah students,
David and I were excited to welcome all 4 of our B'Nai Mitzvah students to the first day of class today. We started off with a game of finger, elbow, shake to get to know a little more about each other (It was as much for me to get to know them as anything since they already know each other).
Then we did an activity called graffiti that gave students a chance to anonymously share worries they have for the year, things they want to learn, things they like about Judaism, etc. We addressed the concerns and filed them away as things to keep in mind as the year goes on. Some major concerns were the amount of work being a lot along with school work and having to speak in front of the whole community. We told students that they are always welcome to call either of us or email us with concerns or if there is a week where things become overwhelming between school and Sunday school and that in those situations we will always work with them. We also showed them the breakdown of the projects and how much we are splitting them up, so they will never be working on more than 2 projects at a time.
We went over the schedule of projects for the year as well. I have attached a copy of that for you. As the year goes, we may have to tweak certain parts, but this will be the basic structure for the year.
After a game of 2 truths and a lie and a bagel break, we discussed the Family Roots Project. A lot of students have run into the problem of people in their family not knowing a lot of the history and we talked about how that is okay. Unfortunately most of us are in that situation, which is why it's so important that we learn what we can now before more of the history gets lost. Students are going to bring whatever they can find out about their family background next week so we can start putting our projects together. Also, students should feel free to include non-Jewish sides of the family in this project if they would like.
If students have family pictures (new or old) they can bring them in to put with their family roots project. We talked about scanning photos and the students making collages to go along with their projects.
Finally, we planned out our class website so that you don't have to get all of this information from us. In the future, David and I will have a blog with a recap from class and important information, but more importantly, the students will each have their own blog to put their reflections from each class and to post the interesting things they are discovering about their identities through our projects and historical lessons. Stay tuned for the website. It should be up and running by next week.
Next week, students need to bring whatever they are able to complete of their Family Roots packet (I stressed many times in class that it's perfectly fine if they can't get all of the answers--or in some cases, many answers at all). They were told to read the packet David handed out about the Spanish Inquisition, but they can actually wait a week on that. David will cover that section on September 23rd's class.
Have a great week,
Becca Katz and David Jordan
David and I were excited to welcome all 4 of our B'Nai Mitzvah students to the first day of class today. We started off with a game of finger, elbow, shake to get to know a little more about each other (It was as much for me to get to know them as anything since they already know each other).
Then we did an activity called graffiti that gave students a chance to anonymously share worries they have for the year, things they want to learn, things they like about Judaism, etc. We addressed the concerns and filed them away as things to keep in mind as the year goes on. Some major concerns were the amount of work being a lot along with school work and having to speak in front of the whole community. We told students that they are always welcome to call either of us or email us with concerns or if there is a week where things become overwhelming between school and Sunday school and that in those situations we will always work with them. We also showed them the breakdown of the projects and how much we are splitting them up, so they will never be working on more than 2 projects at a time.
We went over the schedule of projects for the year as well. I have attached a copy of that for you. As the year goes, we may have to tweak certain parts, but this will be the basic structure for the year.
After a game of 2 truths and a lie and a bagel break, we discussed the Family Roots Project. A lot of students have run into the problem of people in their family not knowing a lot of the history and we talked about how that is okay. Unfortunately most of us are in that situation, which is why it's so important that we learn what we can now before more of the history gets lost. Students are going to bring whatever they can find out about their family background next week so we can start putting our projects together. Also, students should feel free to include non-Jewish sides of the family in this project if they would like.
If students have family pictures (new or old) they can bring them in to put with their family roots project. We talked about scanning photos and the students making collages to go along with their projects.
Finally, we planned out our class website so that you don't have to get all of this information from us. In the future, David and I will have a blog with a recap from class and important information, but more importantly, the students will each have their own blog to put their reflections from each class and to post the interesting things they are discovering about their identities through our projects and historical lessons. Stay tuned for the website. It should be up and running by next week.
Next week, students need to bring whatever they are able to complete of their Family Roots packet (I stressed many times in class that it's perfectly fine if they can't get all of the answers--or in some cases, many answers at all). They were told to read the packet David handed out about the Spanish Inquisition, but they can actually wait a week on that. David will cover that section on September 23rd's class.
Have a great week,
Becca Katz and David Jordan
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