All Lit Up
Dear Parent,
I want to thank you for the thoughtful Chanukah gift I received from the class, but more importantly for the gift I’m given each day. People do say, “Wow! You have TEN children?!”, but the truth within myself is that one doesn’t “have” children. We “give” children. Each morning, you give me the opportunity to give to your children. I feel this responsibility. “Chanuka” stresses both education and dedication.
It’s so special that many of you were able to make it to our Chanuka gathering. Having the opportunity to learn and sing together solidifies our relationship and message to “our” children that the greatest gift of love we give them is the education that gives them the tools to build meaningful Jewish lives.

Hope you enjoy this last day of Chanukah! Morah Miriam

Look, Morah! No Hands! (Signs of Independence)

The past couple of weeks can be called anything but ordinary! While the Chumash studies have become clearer and are advancing at a nice pace, pre-Chanuka learning was brought to a stand-still due to snow and turkey. Although we did not advance in our TaL Am workbooks, there has still been plenty of opportunity to creatively move ahead in our Ivrit knowledge using the TaL Am model.

I have started to see students offer their own poetry in Hebrew, and in English based on what we learned in Hebrew. I am hearing more Hebrew in their questions and am sensing more understanding and ease in general. I am so proud of the many students who took their free time at home to write down their ideas for our performance. Some of them will perform their own works, now traslated into Hebrew (or Heblish, a mixture!). Others enjoyed writing, but prefered to have their friends be the acting "talent". Our kitah has great humore and originality!

We are in a pre-performance "panic" (The Show Must Go On!....as long as we are all having fun and learning!) to get all our scenes filmed and ready for our premiere. Looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday, December 7th from 11:00 - 11:45 in our classroom. For those of you who requested the gathering first thing in the morning, the students begin with Chumash and Tefillah. I only get my hands on them at 9:50. I wanted to give ourselves an hour or so to greet you in calmness/readiness!

At snack each day of Chanuka, we have enjoyed a "show"; A Chanuka song or 2 minute video. I have a feeling most of the kids would like to see them again with their families!
Take a look at Youtube = Maccabeats Candlelight. That was their favorite!

If you are interested in a nice story, and an, unfortunately, very tragic true story, I invite you to read two that I wrote over the past many years. They can be found on http://www.aish.com/
One is called Chanuka in Iowa. The other is called Their light Remembered.
Chanuka Sameach and Shabbat Shalom, Morah Miriam

Don't be Mad. Be Glad!

A big "Thank You" to the many parents who made time to discuss "our" kids' progress to date. It's reassuring and inspiring to know what an affect TaL Am can make in a relatively short time. I truly believe our students will be making leaps and bounds in their Hebrew knowledge and usage in the near future and the years to come.

TaL Am aside ("THIS must be important, if Morah Miriam is putting Ivrit to the side!"), Rabbi Benzaken did a Chesed (Kindness) for me today by leading the entire class in Tefilla so that I could attend an important meeting. Unfortunately, there were a few students who did not show proper Kavod (Respect) to the Rav or to Tefilla.

I witnessed a few students who made the wrong decision, but I was told there were even more students involved. I explained to the class that making a wrong decision is something anyone can do, but not everyone can admit. Being grown up means noticing when I have done something wrong and doing my best to turn things around to be Right. A baby can't do this. If a mother asks, "Did you walk through the mud puddles when I told you to be careful?" a young child will say, "No". The mother can say, "But I see mud on your shoes. How do you explain that unless you walked through the mud?!"

Before admitting any wrong-doing, a child will say, "My friend MADE me do it" or "Aliens flew by and dropped the intergalactic mud on my feet!"

I asked the students NOT to tell me who else was involved, because the situation wasn't DANGEROUS. However, as I passed paper out to the seven children involved, I asked anyone who wanted this chance to apologize to raise their hand. I had another three children volunteer. I was very proud of them. Even the children who were "caught" misbehaving acted very maturely. I think they understood I was not angry with them. I just cannot let them lose a chance to repair the situation. I reminded them that Rabbi Benzaken is a community leader who starts his day with them because he knows how important their Tefilla is. On the board, I wrote לכבוד הרב בן זקן, סליחה אם הפרעתי בתפילה. (Dear Rabbi Benzaken, I am sorry if I disturbed the Tefillah) and I marked a place where the student can sign his/her name and a place for the parent's signature. Please ask your child if they need anything signed tonight and make sure these letters are turned in to me first thing in the morning, so I can pass them on to Rabbi Benzaken.

And while we are speaking of parents' signatures...Reading sheets were passed out to the students today. Based on their reading (You can talk it over with them) they can choose to read one or both paragraphs each night. Please sign the bottom of the sheet on each night your child reads. This will be very useful to a majority of our students who need to work on fluid Hebrew reading, plus vocabulary. I will send an email whenever they bring home a new reading sheet.

I will also be listing the names of students who successfully volunteer ( מתנדבים) to speak only Hebrew on any given morning (עברית כל הבוקר ). To begin with, students can list their initials next to any given class, so I will know they will be answering and asking questions ONLY in Hebrew. I hope the enthusaism will grow and grow, along with our vocabulary and ease of usage.

We will continue working on our present tense and past tense verbs. Our Chanuka studies will begin this week, because there is so much to learn!!!

Parshat Vayera Newsletter - No Joke!

In Chumash, Rabbi Rapoport lead the class in a study of the different feelings behind Avraham and Sarah’s laughter when they heard Sarah would give birth to a son.

אברהם אומר – אני שמח!

Avraham says, “I’m so happy!”

שרה אומרת – אני זקנה ואברהם זקן. היא לא מאמינה

Sarah says, “I am old and Avraham is old.” She doubts it can happen.

In Parshat HaShavua we spent most of our discussion on האנשים הרעים בשסדום the evil people in Sdom. There was much review of midrashim they learned from Morah Leya, but this year we spoke בעברית. We also spoke about the drawings and pictures in our TaL Am studies. They are very useful to understand the Hebrew of the texts and the teacher’s explanations, but we know there ae no pictures in the Torah. Some of the pictures contradict what we have learned about our Avot. For instance, the picture of Yitzchak tied to the mizbe’ach looks like a young scared boy. What we learned last year is that he understood that he was already a man and understood that he was to be a korban (explained by TaL Am as a מתנה-gift), yet he complied. We decided that we can use the pictures to learn Hebrew and enjoy them, but we understand that these drawings are not the Torah.

Our vocabulary grows as we continue working on our פרויקט צדקה (Tsedakah Project). We came up with a “game plan” to success; פוסטרים – קופות – פירסום – איסוף (Posters, tsedaka boxes, advertising, and collection. We were planning to present the posters in front of the student body at Likrat Shabbat this week, but we want to wait for Mrs. Rosenbaum to return to school, as she was the moving force behind this project! We are wishing her a Refuah Shelayma and hope to see her in the library very soon.

A surprise visit by Rabbi Peromsik provided us with a new game, The Last Time I spoke English. Playing the game is purely voluntary. Each student who wants to play gets a card to mark down what time he/she begins speaking no English (Speaking Hebrew or using body language are the only other options). When in an English class, at a swimming lesson, or in a grocery store English may be used only when necessary. There are three levels of Hebrew usage, including the most basic level where the students may speak Heblish. That means they can use a mixture of English and Hebrew…as long as there is some Hebrew spoken in each sentence. We will have a Hebrew Speakers Hall of Fame where the student with the most time speaking Hebrew each week will get their name on our chart. (We spoke about not being competitive against others, rather trying to beat our own records. In this way, we will learn more Hebrew. After all, there is no trip to Hawaii for the winner. We are all winning!

We had a great week. After so many false starts, the year is under way. We are learning and remembering our routines and responsibilities. Sometimes we are so excited about what we learn or so happy to be in a class with such good friends that staying focused gets challenging. I encourage you to talk about their week regarding what they liked about the studies and activites AND how they can behave in a way that will help the whole class get the most from each lesson. We will be discussing this last topic on Monday. I know we will all have important ideas to contribute.

Our Project Shalom Drawing Winner this week is: Yoni Rosenbloom!

Shabbat Shalom, Morah Miriam

Lech Lecha; Way To Go!

An anecdote- My husband was holding our daughter in a “snuggly”, kangaroo type baby holder, patting her back. An older Israeli man said (in Hebrew) “Stop that! You’re hitting her too hard!”

My husband explained that she had a gassy tummy and was comforted by hard pats. He continued, but the man again said, “You’re hitting her too hard!”

My husband figured he would take a more Israel-friendly approach and asked the man, “Is she YOURS?!”

Without blinking an eye the man answered, “She’s not mine. She’s not yours. She’s OURS.”

With that in mind, I hope you will allow me to share in the nachat/naches of OUR children!

This week they did a super job becoming more familiar with our new Chumash studies with Rabbi Rapoport.

In Parasha, we did a review of topics they are familiar with, but this year discussed them only in Hebrew and became more familiar with our “Choveret Parasha” (Parasha Workbook), which - through its instructions - is guiding us to be successful comprehensive readers. These are skills that will aid us in Chumash, in Modern Hebrew and in English studies!

We had a most amazing discussion in Hebrew about the rescue in Chile. What was meant to be a fifteen minute discussion went on for forty five minutes due to questions and explanations.

Eliana asked (in English, and then we translated), “Aych Osim?” How do they do it (Rescue people from underground)?

Shoshana gave us some background information and started to tell about the first chor katan (small hole) that was used for sending the “Korim” (miners) ochel (food) and mayim (water). We talked about the larger chor that was only large enough for one man at a time to go in the ma’alit (elevator. I chose to use this useful word rather than capsule). Yisrael asked “Lamah hem lo osim ma’alit gdolah lharbeh anashim?” (Why didn’t they make an elevator large enough for many men?)

Two answers we came up with:

Ofir – “Ma’alit gdolah yoter kveydah. Gam, yoter anashim bma’alit yoter kveydim” (A larger elevator is heavier to pull up. Also, more men in the elevator makes it heavier.) Perhaps the cabel (cable) wouldn’t be strong enough.

Neshama – “La’asot chor gadol tsarich harbeh zman. Gam la’asot ma’alit gadol tsarich harbeh zman. Ha’anashim lo rotsim l’hiyot ba’adamah harbeh zman” (To make a large hole takes longer. Also, to make a large elevator takes longer. The men don’t want to be in the ground longer.”

You can see that besides building our vocabulary, we are discussing current events that they care about using Hebrew as our language of communication. It was wonderful!

Today we started working on posters for our Proyect Tsedakah (Tsedakah project) that we will present at the Likrat Shabbat next Friday. Each poster includes the reasons we feel each organization is important. More details to follow!

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Miriam

Parashat Noach Newsletter; Let It Pour!

How appropriate that we should experience non-stop rainfall during Parashat Noach!

I want to apologize for not getting this to you until now. I thought it was sent on Thursday, but when I checked for comments, I realized that I needed another tutorial on blogging from Rabbi Meyers. One thing I have to say regarding technology; I am in a constant state of learning!

This past week we began studying two new topics; Chumash - Parashat Vayera, taught by Rabbi Rapoport and Parashat Hashavua with Morah Miriam. The posters TaL Am provides are a priceless tool for jogging memory and inspiring questions. While looking at a poster of Noach, Ish Tsadik, and the anashim hara'im (the evil people), Ori asked about the orange and yellow clouds over the people involved in violence and theft. We noticed the blue skies over Noach and his family. After just a few days of actual class time, we are discussing ideas in Hebrew! Alma reminded us of hamas, stealing something almost worthless. Many connections were made in the name of Morah Leya's Noach studies last year. They are truly sponges!

We learned a new song for the names of the Parashot in Sefer Bereishit. The tune is a Mambo style, and you should have seen the dance floor (Men only....The Ladies preferred to merely sing along this time!).

I must mention what I feel was the most important discussion of the week. We spoke about Gevura, strength, and what is the Jewish idea of a Gibor, hero. I pointed out that a certain student in our class, very quietly and on his own has totally turned his behavior around. Instead of calling out or wandering around the room to talk with friends, I noticed a complete change on Wednesday. That day was a challenging day for a few students, but not for this Gibor. When I look at him, I see his eyes on the teacher. When another friend starts to talk to him, he remains focused and doesn't respond. The next day, the same thing happened. You know who you are, and I want to give you a big ישר כח/ חזק וברוך!

IMPORTANT REMINDER: I have had students each day expressing great hunger and coming up to me requesting special permission to eat snack early, because they haven't had breakfast. A healthy breakfast is essential for your child to be able to concentrate and get the most out of their school day. Breakfast on-the-run ideas: cup of cocoa or milk, piece of fruit, whole grain cereal, crackers and peanut butter, cereal bar, a couple rice cakes, a hand-full of nuts (allergies permitting!). Please send me your own ideas. We are often breakfast on-the-run challenges.

Homework: This week's homework will be for each student to call a friend from class and to read each other a sifron (booklet) from Sifriyah Shelanu (our class library). The booklets will be sent home on Monday and expected back on Wednesday, giving each student one evening to practise and the next evening to read to their friend.

Wishing you a Shavua Tov, Morah Miriam