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Sunday, November 12, 2017

Grade K - Gan Class Update 11-12-17

Hello Gan Class Families!

What a busy day! We spent time with the Cantor and the Rabbi, read a new Torah Story, learned a new letter, created something special and were joined by the mystery reader!  

It was so lucky that this morning, a congregant was looking inside the Torah in the Sanctuary as we entered to Tefilah.  This gave us the opportunity to learn about Hagbah and Gelilah.  We stood as Cantor Ken lifted the Torah, showing us three columns of the writing inside.  He sat down and one of the Aleph Class teachers helped him roll the scrolls together before they showed us how the Torah cover, breastplate, yad and rimonim were placed on the Torah.  Finally, we remained standing as the Torah was returned to the aron kodesh. This was an excellent way to learn more about how we treat the Torah.

Today's new Torah Story was about two brothers named Cain and Abel.  Cain was a farmer and Abel a shepherd.  They both gave gifts to God.  Cain gave God some vegetables while Abel gave God his very best sheep.  God liked Abel's gift best which made Cain very angry.  They fought and Cain killed Abel.  As a consequence, God told Cain that he would have to leave and be a wanderer. Next week we will create illustrations to help remind us about the main idea of this story.

Our new letter was caf.  Caf makes the sound k- and begins the words kippah and kelev, which means dog.  We practiced making this letter with our bodies which was pretty silly and then we reviewed all of the letters we already know.  We are getting really good at pairing the letters with their sounds.  

Rabbi Liben came to visit with us today.  We had so many questions to ask him but narrowed the list down to only a few.  We wanted to know how long it takes to build a pyramid ( a long time), how you become Jewish (you are born Jewish or you can choose to become Jewish) and how long it took to become a Rabbi (Rabbi Liben studied for six years before becoming a Rabbi but still studies Torah all the time).  In addition to our questions, we learned two Israeli dances.  Rabbi Liben LOVES Israeli dancing and he was thrilled to get the opportunity to show us some fun dances.  Everyone had a great time and we can't wait for him to visit again.

This week we made spice boxes which we use to help say Goodbye to Shabbat during Havdalah.  Students were encouraged to smell each of the spices individually.  Many students thought that the individual spices were not all that appealing but when they smelled all the spices together it smelled great!  Students are now prepared to welcome Shabbat and say goodbye with their very own set of Shabbat supplies!  

Today's mystery reader was Tali's mom.  She read us a story called Chik Chak Shabbat by Mara Rockliff.  This story was about a lady that makes cholent every Shabbat.  One Shabbat she is too sick to make it before Shabbat begins so her neighbors come together to make a Shabbat Dinner that keeps the spirit of her famous cholent alive.  None of the students in our class had ever had cholent before but maybe they will want to try it now.

Please remember to bring in stuffing for the Thanksgiving Drive next week.  I already saw two boxes of stuffing the the box.  Thank you!

As always, please let me know if you have questions or concerns about the Gan Class.

Have a wonderful week!

Michelle

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