I love my students!

Dear Parents,

Thank you for sending your child to Hebrew school. I feel honored to have the opportunity to explore our tradition with the wonderfully creative energy and enthusiasm of this 4th grade class. So far this year, we have learned about Jonah, Joshua, Deborah, Samson & Delilah, Saul, Ruth, King David and King Solomon. All of these characters have great lessons to teach us in modern day society about leadership. It has been an exciting start unfolding the magic in the classroom...

This past week was particularly exciting! We learned about King Solomon. In this story, we see that King Solomon was both wise-hearted and practical, as he prayed to G-d to have a wise heart and rule his people with honest discernment, and also built a significant temple for his time. When faced with tough decisions, he made good choices and therefore created a world of integrity around him.

In order to bring this into our lives, as a class we discussed and did a free writing exercise about what makes us wise and able to build special components in our world. The students were incredibly insightful and offered great ideas when asked about this topic. We took individual profile pictures in a chair that looked like a throne and next week the kids will finish their profiles by writing down what makes them wise on the paper. We discussed the idea of what it means to take care of your world and see yourself as a leader (or king or queen!) in your world.

We also learned a new song about family, a song that teaches the kids the Hebrew word for family: mishpacha. We talked about the idea that everyone comes from a different family and having a mishpacha is just as much about community and being warm to friends as it is about who you are related to.

We always have fun in class...in fact, one of our students was being especially creative during snacktime...and figured out how to root for his favorite baseball team with pretzels....see the picture attached!

Sincerely,
Leah Kahn