If you send all of these back by June 30th, with payment of school fees, you can take 10% off your school fees. You do not need to pay membership at this time (though payments are always welcome), but we do need the pledge. Discounts will not be given if we do not receive all of the items and your school fee check or online payment by June 30.

Kolot Chayeinu Childrens Learning Program Overview

In our Kolot Chayeinu Learning Program, we provide experiences for our students through which they discover meaning in Jewish texts, rituals, observances and community. Our students participate in weekly classroom learning and experiential learning programs. Our classes and events are located at the Park Slope Jewish Center and Kolot's home at the Church of Gethsemane.

K-1

• students become familiar with some key tefillot and songs used at Kolot
• students participate in a creative project representing tefillot visually and/or with movement
• students explore themes of the major holidays throughout the year

Kitah Aleph

2^nd grade

Judaica:

• 1^st Trimester: Holiday Unit- Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur (sample lesson)
• 2^nd Trimester: Jewish Community Unit- Family Study
• 3^rd Trimester: Jewish Text Unit- Torah Study

Hebrew/Tefillah:

• students can recognize and sound out the letters of the Alephbet
• students can sing along to several key tefillot
• students explore possible meanings and create their own interpretations of several key tefillot
• students explore the role that prayer plays in Jewish life and practice
• students explore why Jews pray
• *Students co-lead a Kabbalat Shabbat service once during the year

Kitah Bet

3^rd/4^th grades

Judaica:

• 1^st Trimester: Holiday Unit- Sukkot
• 2^nd Trimester: Jewish Community Unit- Kolot Study
• 3^rd Trimester: Jewish Text Unit- Jewish Stories Study

Hebrew/Tefillah:

• students will review and really master the Alephbet
• students will begin reading tefillot used at Kolot Chayeinu
• Students will be able to sing along to several more tefillot
• Students will know the meanings of and create personal interpretations of several more key tefillot students will explore the question: How can prayer be personal when the words are set and composed hundreds of years ago?
• Explore can we/how can we make the word “God” meaningful to us?
• * Students co-lead a Kabbalat Shabbat service once during the year

Kitah Gimmel

3^rd/4^th grades

Judaica:

• 1^st trimester: Jewish Community Unit- Jewish Community and Food
• 2^nd trimester: Holiday Unit- Purim
• 3^rd trimester: Jewish Text Unit- Midrash Study

Hebrew/Tefillah:

• students will continue reading tefillot used at Kolot Chayeinu
• Students will be able to sing along to several more tefillot
• Students will know the meanings of and create personal interpretations of several more key tefillot
• Students will be able to recognize and know the meanings of some key words
• Students will know the history/origins of a couple of significant tefillot
• * Students co-lead a Shabbat morning service once during the year

Kitah Daled

4^th/5^th grades

Judaica:

• 1^st trimester: Jewish Community Unit—Jews Around the World Study. (sample lesson)
• 2^nd trimester: Holiday Unit- Pesah/Shavuot
• 3^rd trimester: Jewish Text Unit- Talmud Study

Hebrew/Tefillah:

• students will continue reading tefillot used at Kolot Chayeinu
• Students will be able to sing along to several more tefillot
• Students will be able to recognize and know the meanings of some more key words
• Students will know the meanings of and create personal interpretations of several more key tefillot
• Students will understand the basic structure of the different services
• * Students co-lead a Shabbat morning service once during the year

Kita Aleph—Daled Educational Retreats

2007-8

Every student in the younger children’s learning program is required to attend at least 2 of the 3 educational retreats offered throughout the school year. These programs provide us with an opportunity to build more of a community of learners as well as to dig deeper into subjects we don’t have more time for during regular class hours. Please note them on your calendars:

Shabbat Retreat

• November 9, 4-7:30pm
• November 10, 10:30am-2:30pm

Social Justice Retreat

• January 20, 10:30am-3:30pm
• January 21, 10:30am-1:30pm

Jewish Historical/Cultural Fieldtrip

• April 6, approximately 10:00am-4:00pm

Bnei Mitzvah 1

Hebrew/Tefillah:

• practice reading and singing Shabbat morning tefillot
• practice leading tefillot
• explore the meaning/interpretation of about half of the tefillot
• know the history/origins of a couple of the tefillot
• *students will co-lead Shabbat morning services once during the year

Bnei Mitzvah 2

Hebrew/Tefillah:

• practice reading and singing Shabbat morning tefillot
• practice leading tefillot
• explore the meaning/interpretation of about half of the tefillot
• know the history/origins of a couple of the tefillot
• revisit the role of prayer in Jewish life and practice
• *students will co-lead Shabbat morning services once during the year

Judaica:

Judaica Curriculum rotates bi-annually so that each bnei mitzvah student will participate in each of the 6 curriculum units described below:

Year A

• 1^st trimester: Jewish Ritual Unit- Shabbat Ritual
• 2^nd trimester: Jewish Community Unit- Tzedakah
• 3^rd trimester: Jewish History Unit- Zionism/Israel

Year B

• 1^st trimester: Jewish Ritual Unit- Come Together: Jewish Communal Ritual
• 2^nd trimester: Jewish Community Unit- Our Communities;Our Issues (Jewish Ethics and Decisionmaking)
• 3^rd trimester: Jewish History Unit—Rotating Survey Course (Holocaust, Medieval Spain, Lower East Side)

Sample Lesson

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur Study

Lesson #2: Making Rituals Meaningful (and/or), Making our Own…

• What are the important RH rituals? Meanings, symbolism?
• Shofar and 4 sounds, wearing white, roundness, apples, honey?
• Any more traditions? Can we add some?

Act Out: Tashlich.

Time to “cast away” our sins, or regrets from last year. Can use pocket lint or bread crumbs, typically in water. Throw onto imaginary classroom stream to cleanse and renew us.

Practice: Shofar Blowing.

Why was / is the Shofar blown? When and how? Other meaning?

Discuss: Cycles. Why does everything seem to be so round?

• Identify things which are round or repeat, why?
• How does this fit with the idea of self improvement and helping ot Heal the World? Do we have our own symbolic circles?
• How are we connected to nature, seasons, Torah? (board list)

Taste: Apples and Honey.

• We dip as a metaphor for sweetness. What else could we do?
• What about the stickiness? What could that mean to us?

Homework: Continue to bring in items from HH which can be used in our siyyum project, creating a guide to the high holidays. This can be a card, recipe, memory, short story, or anything else you can think of!

Also, if we have something at home that reminds us of the whole world, bring it in to share with your classmates…

Sample Lesson

Jews Around the World, Kita Daled

Lesson One: Who is a Jew?

Materials needed:

• Easel of paper
• Markers
• Large world map

Essential Questions:

• What is the common ("textbook") perception of a Jew?
• Is this perception accurate?
• What do all Jews have in common?

Objectives:

• Learn a little about each other and our cultural backgrounds
• Begin to broaden our notion of Jewish identity

Outline:

• Compose (via brainstorming) a list of some prominent mitzvot
• Talk about a few of the mitzvot and identify some traditions that have arisen from the practice of observing those mitzvot
• Break off into pairs or trios and try to imagine other traditions that could have arisen from observing those same mitzvot under different conditions
• Return to the group and share our newly-imagined "traditions" either with pictorial illustrations or live-action demonstrations or both

If time allows…

• Share each of our backgrounds, to the extent that we know it--where our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents came from and what languages they spoke, and whether they were raised Jewish.
• Identify (together, with the help of a map) the regions where large populations of Jews either have lived in the past or live today

Homework: Pick one of the countries from which your family has come.  Find out something about how Jews lived and what it meant to be Jewish there when your grandparents or great-grand-parents were your age.