Mrs.+Landsman

== = 2009-2010 School Year =  =Welcome to Mrs. Landsman’s Wiki! =  I am excited to experience a new year of Sundays in third grade with a new group of learners!

I plan to update our wiki each Monday or Tuesday to describe what we did the previous week. This way, you can get a summary of our classroom happenings on a weekly basis.

Everyone should have gotten a letter in the mail summarizing our 3rd grade curriculum. However, in case you need a reminder, I’m going to give you an overview here. Third grade studies have three basic elements to them: our year-long Torah project, our CHAI curriculum, and the holidays.

For our year-long Torah project, the students each make their own Torah. They make most of the parts in Art, but the scroll they make in class. This scroll contains a combination of summaries of Torah stories we have read and Jewish values the Torah teaches us. The stories come from a book called, //Torah: The Growing Gift // . In this book, I read to the students from Creation up to Jacob’s marriages. Also, some of the Jewish values we learn in our CHAI curriculum may be found in the Torah scrolls.

The CHAI curriculum was put together to teach students Jewish values and, hopefully, to help them connect those ideas up to their daily lives. It is literally given to us as a book of great, multi-sensory lessons that we can run with the students. The third grade CHAI curriculum is divided into three strands: Torah, Avodah (or the work we do to connect to God), and Gimilut Chasidim (or acts of kindness).

The final strand of our curriculum is Jewish holidays. The students will learn about each of the holidays over the course of the year. We impart to the students the symbols and practices associated with each holiday and, again, try to help them find ways to make these practices a part of their lives.

If you have any questions, please feel free to comment on the blog and I will come and check them out. If your question is of a more private nature, please contact me through email, call me, or come speak to me after class.

I look forward to a new year and to getting to know your children!

Marla Landsman  _



 September 13, 2009

What a busy first week of religious school we had!

We had Music, Services, and Hebrew with Mrs. Abrons. In class, everyone kindly made a name tag for me - it will take a while for me to learn everyone's names! My class joined the whole school in decorating fabric shopping bags to be filled with Kosher canned goods and brought back on Sukkot for the Ark. In addition, the students worked in small groups to research answers in our textbooks to questions about Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Then, each group taught the class what they had learned. Everyone really seemed to enjoy the process of taking ownership of their piece of information!

One note for my parents: my early session class is //very // large! We have 23 students, compared to our second session where we only have 13. If you are able to manage bringing your child to the later session, I highly recommend switching! The second session will certainly have a vast learning advantage with its smaller numbers. Thank you for considering the suggestion! :)

As you know, we will be off for the next two weeks for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, so I will see your children in three weeks.

L'Shana Tova Tikatavu! _



 October 4, 2009

This week, our specials were Hebrew, Music, and Art. In Art, the students began their year-long Torah project by making their Yads. They learned that the Yad is used to touch the scroll to keep a reader's place because we never touch the Torah scroll with our fingers.

Most everything else we did this week had something to do with either Sukkot or Simchat Torah. For Sukkot, we went to visit the Sukkah. All the kids had the chance to shake the Lulav and Etrog. Then, in the classroom, I talked to the students about Sukkot and Simchat Torah, as well as some interesting facts about the Torah. We took a little "field trip" to the sanctuary (in the first session, the small sanctuary; in the second session, the large sanctuary was available, so we went there). We opened the ark, or //Aron Hakodesh // (as the children learned it is in Hebrew), and looked at the Torah. We looked at and talked about all the parts that decorate and protect the Torah and what we will be making in Art over the course of the year: the Yad (already made), the mantel or Torah cover, the breastplate, the wimple, and Rimonim, or little crowns for each of the //Aitz Chayim //, or dowels, that hold the scroll. It was a great week!

Please remember to send your child with $5.00 for weekly Challah if you haven't done so already.

I look forward to seeing everyone in a couple of weeks!



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> October 11, 2009

This week, our specials were Hebrew, Music, and Services. We started a reward system for excellent participation in services, and we discussed what exactly that level of active engagement would look like: <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> I told them that each week my expectations for their participation would rise as they have more experience in services. Within that framework, each week that looks like a "perfect service" to me will earn them a star on the bulletin board. Five stars will get them a treat and a little time to just hang out with friends in the classroom. We have so little time in 3rd grade and so much to cover than even during snack time I am reading them a Torah story or starting a CHAI lesson! Therefore, even just getting some time to socialize is a big deal! I feel strongly that learning how to actively engage in services in the correct way is one of the most important skills they will learn at school. However, I also understand that such a level of participation requires focus and concentration, and I feel that a little extra material compensation offers a worthwhile push toward those correct behaviors. This plan worked very well last year, the first year I tried it, and I feel that it will continue to be a help this year!
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Following along in the siddur
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Asking help from a neighbor or teacher if they get lost
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Helping neighbors to find their spots if they look lost
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Reading the responsive English if we could
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Trying the Hebrew a tiny bit here or there when there is transliteration
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Singing along with the songs as they learn them
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Really standing when it's time to stand (that is, not with a knee on the chair or anything like that)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Only talking to neighbors for help in finding their place in the siddurim - no social chatting
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Holding the siddur in an honorable and respectful fashion

In class, we started our Torah scrolls, in which we will be writing all year. I read the story of Creation to the students. We discussed the lesson to be learned from the story of Creation (that we rest for Shabbat as God rested after creation to show respect to God for all the work that God did in creating the world and still does for us). We also wrote a summary of the story as a class. We hope to begin a 3rd grade digital Torah project using Voicethread next week. For this project, each of the third grade classes would alternate taking a story. Some students will read the story and some will draw pictures to illustrate it. Hopefully, we will have this project started and up on the school web site soon!

It was a very productive week, and I look forward to another one next week!

Please remember to send your children with $5.00 for Challah and also with Tzedaka on a weekly basis. Thanks!

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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">October 18, 2009

This week our specials were Hebrew and Music.

In the classroom, the students read the story of Adam and Eve and wrote in their scrolls what they thought the lesson of the story was. In addition, we got started on our digital Torah. Some students read the summary of last week's story, Creation, into Garage Band, and some drew pictures illustrating the story. Any student who did not help with this part of the digital Torah will get a chance to do so the next time it is our turn to do a story.

We also had a "CHAI" lesson about G'Milut Chasadim, or showing lovingkindess to others to make the world a better place. The kids did a great job of brainstorming big problems in the world and little ways they could personally help with those problems.

Please remember to send your Challah money and Tzedaka! Next week is Family Education. I look forward to seeing everyone there! _



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> November 1, 2009

Thanks so much to everyone who came to Family Education! It really covers such an important part of our curriculum; this time it was an overview of the Torah, which is integral to the students understanding their year-long Torah project.

There are still some families that haven't sent their Challah money!! Please do so next week! Thank you!

_



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> December 6, 2009

Hmmmm... well, admittedly, I seem to have gotten a bit behind on my entries! Here is what has been going on in our classroom.

We have read the stories of Cain and Abel and Noah. We decided that the lesson of Cain and Abel is, obviously, do not murder, but also that our lives and our bodies are a gift from God that we need to cherish. For Noah, we discussed that the lesson is that it is our responsibility to take care of the world and the people and animals in it and that we need to make good choices. We also wrote a summary for Noah and after winter break will be making another Voicethread with that story (we are a bit entrenched in Chanukah right now!)

For our CHAI (Jewish Values) lessons, we have talked about how our bodies are a gift from God and that by taking care of our bodies we show respect for life.

Finally, last week we started talking about Chanukah. The students worked in small groups to look through a powerpoint presentation on the story of Chanukah and some of its traditions. They each wrote something they'd learned from the presentation. For example, many of the students had not known that the Assyrians (also referred to as the Greeks because they followed Greek ways) wouldn't let the Jews practice Judaism. Others learned that Chanukah means "dedication" after the Temple in Jerusalem was re-dedicated to God following it's destruction by the Assyrians. Many had thought that "Maccabee" was Judah's last name, but now they know that Maccabee means "hammer" and was a reference to their fighting style in the war with the Assyrians. After discussing all the students had learned, we talked about how there are two miracles of Chanukah: a spiritual miracle and an historical miracle. The spiritual miracle is the one many of them have known; that the oil in the lamp should have lasted only one day but actually lasted eight. The historical miracle is that a comparatively minuscule Maccabee army defeated the massive Assyrian army.

The last Sunday of 2009, we had a Chanukah party in addition to some curricular activities. We played a Powerpoint Jeopardy game that covered most of our curriculum so far.

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January 24, 2010

Hello and Happy 2010!

After some deliberation, I have decided to update the wiki every month instead of every week. In January, we covered a holiday, a few Torah stories, and a Jewish value from our CHAI curriculum.

The holiday the students learned about what Tu B'Shevat. The students learned that another name for Tu B'Shevat is "The Birthday of the Trees", and that we celebrate the trees at this time of year because trees are just beginning to "awaken" around now. Through a lesson on the Smartboard, they learned the tree fruits that come from Israel, the categories of tree fruits in a Tu B'Shevat Seder, and the Seven Species, or those holy fruits (+ grains) specifically mentioned in the Torah: wheat, barley, pomegranate, dates, figs, olives, and grapes. They ate fruits found in Israel during Kiddush (snack time).

The stories we read all talked about Abraham. We read about Abraham's destroying the idols in his father's shop in his discovery that there is one true God, how God promised the land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants (us), how God gave Abraham and Sarah their son Isaac even though they were really too old to have kids, and the //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Akeda //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> (the binding of Isaac). We spent a lot of time on the last of those stories talking about how some stories in the Torah are controversial, this one in particular (i.e. that a lot of people really don't like the story). We talked about how learning from the Torah sometimes means studying and debating the merits of any particular lesson and the way it is taught. Other lessons we learned from the Abraham stories so far have included that Abraham is the "first father" and Sarah the "first mother" of the Jewish people, that Abraham was the first Jew, that the foundation of Judaism is that there is only one God, and that we should trust God to do what is right for us.

The Jewish value learned from our CHAI curriculum was what is //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kadosh //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> or holy. The students sorted words on the Smartboard as "ordinary" and "special". Then, they moved some of the words under the "special" column into a " //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kadosh/ //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Holy" category. They learned that some people think that Hebrew letters have special meanings, and that the first letter of //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kadosh //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">, which is //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Koof //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> means "We reach toward God, and God reaches toward us". Using our categorized words and the meaning of the //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Koof //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">, we defined //<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kadosh //<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"> or "holy" as "really, really special" and "having to do with God".

January has been a very productive month!

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> February 28, 2010

February was a bit of a strange month since, as you know, we only had two regular sessions of religious school.

In February, the students did some paper-pencil follow-up activities to the <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">// Kadosh // <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> lesson we did in January. The students continued to work to be active participants in services and Music, and they also had Art during which they made the breastplate for their Torahs. Of course, we spent some time on Purim. Our Machoniks (Bryce in the first session and Morgan and Micaela in the second session) ran a Purim scavenger hunt. In this activity, the students worked in teams to use clues in pieces of the Purim story to find each clue as they went along through the hunt. At the end, they put all the pieces together to read the whole Purim story.

I saw many of the students at the Purim Carnival and hope you all had a blast there!



March 22, 2010

In March, we read two more Torah stories, did another Voicethread to contribute to the 3rd Grade Digital Torah, made our last piece for our Torah in Art, learned the concept of <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">// Avodah // <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> from our CHAI (Jewish Values) curriculum, and did activities for Pesach. And, of course, they had services and music.

The first Torah story we read was called "Generation to Generation". In this story, we moved from the generation of Abraham and Sarah, who pass away, to the generation of Isaac and Rebecca, who meet and get married. The second story we read was about Jacob and Esau. This story always gets a good discussion going as we talk about the morality of the choices made by Jacob and Rebecca. The lessons from these stories were written into the students' Torah scrolls, and we drew pictures and read our summary of Jacob and Esau for the 3rd Grade Digital Torah.

The students learned this month about <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">// Avodah // <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">, the work we do to connect with God. We talked about when Jacob was alone in the desert and how he did not likely feel connected with God at that point. Then, we talked about times that they felt alone and thereby disconnected from God. Finally, the students did an activity where they used street signs (Stop, Yield, etc.) to make "directions" to God for Jacob and/or a friend who feels alone and not connected to God. It is definitely a high-level concept for third graders, but just in the idea of thinking about feeling all alone versus feeling connected, I think the students really understood the idea. In fact, I am always blown away by what the students take in from this lesson, and this year was no exception.

In our last week before spring break, we talked about Pesach. We divided the third grade into two stations: one in which they heard the story of Pesach and acted it out, and the other in which they played a game of Powerpoint Jeopardy to review the important information associated with this holiday. In addition, our stations fed into our Art schedule, where the students sewed and painted their Torah Covers or Mantels, the final piece of their Torah projects.



April 25, 2010

April brought new concepts to the students. They read their last Torah story to put in their scrolls. They learned about Yom Hashoah (the Holocaust Memorial) and Yom Ha'atz Ma'ut (Israel's Independence Day). And, while they didn't have services this month, of course they had music.

In our last story, "Jacob Leaves Home," the students heard about what happened to Jacob after he runs off into the desert to escape Esau's anger. They learned about Jacob's dream about a ladder to heaven and how and why he is tricked into marrying Leah before ultimately marrying Rachel.

Third grade is a year where many students are first hearing about Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Memorial. We try to keep the conversation about the Holocaust loose and free of too much detail, as we feel we want to expose them only on a developmentally appropriate basis. Invariably, the students are fascinated by this particular subject, but we work hard to keep things as vague as possible.

We also had Israel Day at school in honor of Yom Ha'atz Ma'ut, Israeli Independence Day. I always equate this holiday for my students to the 4th of July, and that seems to give them a good foundation of understanding as to what it means to Israel. For Yom Ha'atz Ma'ut, we again ran third grade stations. In my room, the students did a webquest to find Israel on a map and answer questions about it. Then, they got to play a few games and do open exploration about Israel on Babaganewz.com and Israel4Kids (www.israelemb.org/kids/). In Mrs. Glimer's room, they heard a story about Israel's independence and, for those in the 1st session, in Mrs. Novick's room they did some fun sheets. Then, they got to do Israeli dancing with the fourth grade (which was a ton of fun and, incidentally, a fabulous workout!). Finally, they had cupcakes and sang Hatikva with Mrs. Abrons as a complete third grade.

The month ended, as you know, with one of Mrs. Mason's fabulous Family Education Days. We are so thankful for those! They really cover some of the most important concepts of our curriculum in such a fun way; those kids that go really walk away knowing much of what they need to know for third grade.



May 16, 2010

This month was mostly a wrap-up month. We had our Torah Make-Up day on Mother's Day, on which every student who attended completely finished his or her Torah project. We touched on the holiday of Shavuot. And, of course, we had our annual Torah Dedication, the culmination of a year's worth of hard work and learning.

I could not be more thrilled to have had such a great group of students, nor sadder to see them go. Thanks for such a great year!

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