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What happens when you cross Lag B’Omer, two days of Color War and a late night barbeque with a ball game on a beach? Very tired kiddos.  During davening, I got the rhythm going and let the students clap, bang and stamp to the beat in davening. They were louder than normal but at least they weren’t asleep. We reviewed some pesukim, learned another pasuk, and then came parsha time. A few years ago, I had made up a fictional story about a kohein named Shmeryl Cohen and his life. He almost marries a divorcee (gasp!), he has visions of angels, he is a zookeeperRead More →

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Tefillah: We discussed how ה’ is טוב לכל – to all and is good to ALL of his creations. We talked about not hurting animals unnecessarily  I even mentioned how Rav Yaakov Yosef Herman would even feed cats in Yerushalayim because he was טוב to all of Hashem’s creations. Chumash – We reviewed a bit and did one more pasuk. The students were a little hyper because they had COLOR WAR. (My kids were on different teams. When they got off the bus today, my first grader had on this huge grin. I had assumed that he had won. No, he lost – he just hadRead More →

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It’s COLOR WAR. Yellow & Blue. We still had davening and chumash for half a period. The kids lined up their desks into two lines facing each other. Tefillah: We were up to a great pasuk of Ashrei to give a pep talk for color war. חנון ורחום ה’ ארך אפים וגדל חסדו. – I talked about how we are supposed to imitate Hashem. The better we act, the bigger we are. חנון – be a gracious winner or loser – רחום – help out the weaker kids/kindergarten kids who seem overwhelmed ארך אפים – if someone annoys or upsets us, we should say overRead More →

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Tefillah: הדר כבוד הודך, ודברי נפלאתיך אשיחה. ועזוז נוראתיך יאמרו, וגדלתך אספרנה.  זכר רב טובך יביעו, וצדקתך  ירננו… Meaning: The splendorous glory of Your power and Your wondrous deeds I shall discuss. And of Your awesome power they  will speak, and Your greatness I shall relate. A recollection of Your abundant goodness they will utter and of Your righteousness they will sing exultantly…. Each of these three lines of Ashrei mentions different ways to communicate out loud. Focus: Why is it so important to vocalize these ideas? Activity: What are some things that are important to say? Why do you need to say them? What will happen to our opinionRead More →

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Tefillah: Continue with ashrei Dor l Dor. Asked students to think of one thing they learned from a grandparent. Some of the  answers were candy making, baseball. Who taught their grandparents baseball – they said their parents. I asked when baseball was invented – that was a debate was it in the 1800s or during the civil war. I mentioned how we have something that goes back generation to generation, further back than baseball or making candy – The Torah & believing in Hashem. The Torah goes back to Moshe. But believing in Hashem goes back to Avraham. When we say דור לדור it reminds us thatRead More →

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Tefillah: We had the second graders join us because of some substitute timing. We reviewed that Ashrei = Happy and what makes us happy. We then translated the first few lines of Ashrei until בכל יום. I asked the students if they needed to thank their mothers today if they already did so yesterday? Why would we need to bless and appreciate Hashem every day? Should our feelings of thanks to our mother be the same each and every day? Before we said Ashrei, we thought of something we are happy for. We paused before בכל יום to think of what we would thank HashemRead More →

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Intro: We are starting אשרי! We discussed אשרי means happy. What do we need to do to be happy? We need to focus on good things to appreciate them to be happy. In אשרי, we will focus on many things ה’ does which is why we are happy. Chumash:  Review Pesukim 25-27. Translation sheets Learn pesukim 28-31 Draw shorashim on board 2) Ask questions:     if יעקב thinks it is time to leave, what should the conversation go like?    When do you think יעקב will want to go and why?     Will לבן want him stay? How will he convince יעקב toRead More →

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Today was a great day. The class did this awesome unit about the Civil War where each kid took one historical figure, researched his life and role in the Civil War, wrote journal entries from that perspective and then dressed in costume to present  in a “town hall meeting” We went on a field trip today to Genessee Country Village & Museum – a living history museum where they recreate life from the 18th and 19th century. As a parent and co-teacher I came along. It was an awesome place. There was a pioneer homestead where they got to grind corn, carry a yoke, wash dishes andRead More →

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Intro: The students were able to find the words on the second page of the worksheets but weren’t able to do the matching. So it was back to the drawing board for another way of teaching it so it sticks. I asked the students questions from each line. “What word in line 1 tells us that Hashem made the world with his words?” שאמר This specific reading of the text led to some very interesting questions that showed a deep comprehension. Why does it need to repeat the word מלך so many times? (we discussed themes in poetry.  I have a son in the class so I know thatRead More →

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Intro: Give out these worksheets as a conclusion to ברוך שאמר – Chumash:   New Unit: Yaakov earning his own sheep by outsmarting  Lavan Pre Perek Prep: Part 1 – without the binder for help Part 2 – with the binder for help Differentiation: Enrichment – kids who finish all words hang up cards Remediation – Kids who don’t know Part 1 words look up in binder Other Remediation – Only do half of the words in Part 2, if they look familiar Other Prep: The rest of this perek is dependant on understanding what are the goats and sheep referring to. We will  color andRead More →

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It will be a busy day Intro: let the kids know the modified schedule. Tefillah: We went straight into davening Chumash:  Review:  Shorashim – kids act out shorashim Game – Prep: Filled a bag with yellow, orange and green papers. Put kids in two lines in front of the felt boards for two teams Round 1: Each kid put their hand in a bag and picked out a colored paper. They had to choose a flashcard from the felt board and translate. They had to identify the names (in orange). For the Imahos, they had to list their sons. For the Shevatim, they had to list theRead More →

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Tefillah: We reviewed the  idea that ה’  gives us  eternal עולם הבא for the smallest Mitzva. I asked the students what was their easiest Mitzvah. One said tzitzis, another shouted out “I love You, Hashem” etc. Today, we spoke about all the praises we give ה’ at the end of ברוך שאמר. This is based on an idea I found on a great website Praying With Fire – http://www.prayingwithfire.org/images/Newsletter52.pdf . Activity:  Ask each student how he would describe his grandmother in 1 word. Get a big list Asked would this word be enough to praise her if she was being praised at a dinner? How would you describeRead More →

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Tefillah: Reviewed the  idea from ברוך שאמר  that ה’s does miracles   every day. This was a theme we really delved into with אדון עולם. Every day, before Tefilla, I asked each child to write one thing that was incredible that ה’  until we came up with 100 things. I think asking a similar question again will be over kill. Today we are focusing on ברוך שכר טוב ליראיו based on an idea I found on a great website Praying With Fire – http://www.prayingwithfire.org/images/Newsletter50.pdf. Activity:  Ask each student to list a favorite thing and rate it on the scale of 1-10 Close your eyes and imagine thatRead More →

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I know I won’t have time to keep this daily blogging up but a few more posts won’t kill me. A. Tefillah time – It’s Rosh Chodesh! So we will not have much time for the pre tefillah talks since the boys daven with the older boys and the girls join the older girls to sing hallel. B. Chumash: פרק ל:ט-יד: translationThese pesukim have some difficult words with the continuation of the birth of the shevatim. Before the class – review who has been born, reason for the names. See if students can remember all shevatim and with partner remember reason for names. Then we will do our “noteRead More →

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A. Tefillah time – the class tried to move the water bottle today by saying “Move!” no luck. I asked them to think of how I can change the world using just my words – one student figured out the riddle. We did Think, Pair, Share to think of positive things we can say to others to change the world. B. Chumash: Acting out the shorashim was a huge hit. Future note: the students will be MIMES (no sound) and must remain seated to qualify. After the first round of teaching, we did a rapid fire round of MIME shorashim.  The students filled out their linear translation independently orRead More →

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I have so many ideas I’d love to write about but 1. I don’t have time, 2. it would be a waste of other peoples time. So here is a short post of what I may be doing tomorrow in school. A. Tefillah time – After brachos, we do an activity to make few words in tefilla come alive. We just began ברוך שאמר. Today: I asked the class today to try to move a pencil by looking at it. Then, the class said, “Move!” but the pencil didn’t move.  how amazing it is that Hashem said and the world came from nothing into something. Tomorrow:Read More →