The kindergarten class continues to amaze me every week that we meet.  They are so smart and have been learning and retaining so much information!  I bring them a lot of material as we are setting the foundation for their future learning and am impressed with their positive attitudes and readiness to learn.

We have been working on a tree of life/family tree project.  Trees (eitzim) have a lot of significance in Judaism and we are using the symbolism of a family tree to create a learning tool.  The kids have been introduced to Abraham (the first Jewish person) and know that he made a difficult decision to leave his family and his home to follow God.  Abraham would be blessed with children who equaled the number of stars in the sky for following God and trusting God.  However, in his old age, Abraham and his wife, Sarah, still had no children together.  When Sarah found out that she would have a child, she laughed - and then named their child Yitzhak - which means laughter.

We have talked about Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Esau, Jacob, Rachel, Lean and Joseph.  Each of these matriarchs and patriarchs has a leaf on the tree of life that we are creating.

If you are looking for an activity to do at home, make a similar family tree with your children, your generation, your parents and so on - as far back as you can go.

I hope that everyone had a great time celebrating Purim at Sinai Temple - the party, shpiel and carnival were so much fun!  I loved seeing all of the costumes.

We have the next two weeks off for Spring Break and will come back to finish our trees and start prepping for Passover.  Our class will be working with the pre-k class and I have a great Passover Seder project for the kids.  If anyone sews and would be able to help make 25 sashes (we have felt) that should mainly involve one straight line stitch per sash, please let me know!  I will also be sending out an email with a sign-up for contributions to our class passover experience.

Please do not hesitate if you have any questions!

Jody