A Purim Shpiel is On It's Way!

Hi Parents!

First off, buried somewhere in this email is a secret word that relates to what the students have been learning class. If your student comes back to class with the correct word, they will earn an extra sticker for their chart!

Secondly, what have we been up to? Last week we learned the Purim story, and acted out the “real” story for the pre-k students. The students took on the roles of all of the players in the story quite well. We talked about how not just hearing the Purim story, but also acting out the story is part of how we celebrate the holiday!

After vacation we will begin writing our own “Purim Shpiel” that we will perform for the rest of ARS, (secret word this week is Shushan). The students have already decided that the shpiel will have an Ansin Religious School theme. I’m really looking forward to working with them on this, and I know they are looking forward to taking this on!

This week, students are working on creating Tzedakah boxes for the 5^th Grade Mitzvah Project on Yemen Orde. There has been a lot about Yemen Orde written in the ARS emails these last few weeks. Now, the students will be attempting to raise money for this school, a home for children in Israel that was devasted by the fires outside of Haifa. We will be brainstorming ways to raise money for this great cause with a class. I encourage you to ask your students about what they came up!

This week for homework, students have been assigned a character to do some research on. They will bring in this research after vacation week and use it to help us write our shpiel!

As usual, please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions!

Thanks,

Stacy

What Have We Been Up To?

Well, it's been awhile since this blog has been update, and for that I apologize.

I'm sorry to say that we missed another day of 3rd grade because of the snow yesterday, but here is what we have been up to so far...

After spending 3 long weeks learning all about Tu B'Shevat and preparing for our service, we took a break to review all that we have learned about the holidays so far. The students individually prepared a song, rap, or poem about a holiday of their choice. These were a great opportunity to refresh our memory about what each holiday is, why it's important to celebrate it, and the different things we do to celebrate.

Videos of a sampling of these presentations can be seen here:

Coming up in class, we will begin studying Purim. Last week, your students brought home a homework sheet that asked them to think about what they wanted to learn about Purim. Over the next 3-4 weeks, we will be focusing our study on answering those questions, learning the Purim story, and putting together a few creative projects.

I hope to see you all at the ARS Pizza Dinner on Tuesday. As always, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions you might have!