The last Sunday that we had class was action packed. We are reviewing Hebrew and learning new letters each week. Although we haven’t been using the workbooks as often as I had hoped to, I am teaching along with them and utilizing the order and format of the workbooks. We are working to read letters and vowels and recognize them in print and script. It’s a slow but steady process. I’m proud of the progress the students are making as a whole.

To backtrack, the generosity of the student’s weekly Tzedakah donations has been distributed. We made an $18 donation and accompanied it with ‘get well’ and ‘thinking of you’ cards to Alyn Hospital in Israel. We also sent cards with a pizza and soda party for 10 soldiers in Israel. It was very thoughtful and will be enjoyed by the recipients. The next $18 we collect will be used to plant a tree in Israel. Thank you for your shekels!

The children all shared the instruments that they played and we now have a sign up list to bring them in and play a song for the class. Jared was our first musician and played Smoke on the Water on the guitar for us! It was a great treat and we all enjoyed it. The one rule is that the child can actually play a song. We’re looking forward to more musical interludes.

We enjoyed a visit with Rabbi Kalender and he enjoyed sitting on the floor with the kids. He led a discussion about Tu B’Shvat and everyone had a good time. Afterwards Jared played his guitar for the Rabbi, too. We had a ‘field trip’ to the Library at the Religious School office. The children enjoyed checking out books. Look in their backpacks and make sure you read them before they are returned at our next class.

Mrs. Pearlstein came in for another Israel class. She guided the children as they wrote a song about Israel. It was a lot of fun and the children loved it! We’re all looking forward to seeing the classes finished projects when we celebrate Israel@60 in the spring.

	We recently spent time learning about Israel with the JCCNV shlicha, Shiri. She led a program for grades 1-3 and we had a great time!

We've also been learning about Israel by making papier mache topographical maps (above) and cookie maps (below) with OTRS Israel Specialist Michelle Pearlstein:
Photos courtesy of Michelle Pearlstein