Morah Toby Schlussel

Dear Parents,

This past Sunday we began our day with Tefillah. We stayed in the small Chapel afterwards to discuss and learn a little more about Pesach (Passover) using the Haggadah (the text we use at the seder).

We continued  reading in the HASEFER booklet to improve our fluency in Hebrew reading. We played the game of reading baseball during reading time to make it fun and exciting. The students really enjoyed this new approach.

 The 4th graders read pages 48 and 49.

The 5th and 6th graders read pages 56 an 57 .

Please encourage your children to review these pages at home.

On Tuesday, again the students had a choice of two different venues for Tefillah, the teacher run minyan or Cantor Gutman's tefillah session.

Immediately after, the 4th graders had the opportunity to see a You Tube short video about a spontaneous singing of Hatikvah on a commuter train in Jerusalem
. We took the time to see this because we discussed the Hatikvah in class  Sunday,  and I thought the students would be interested in seeing  and hearing  the beautiful singing of the Jewish National Anthem in this surprising and unique way.

All three reading classes got together for their lessons.The 4th graders practiced reading the Pesach kiddush and we discussed the significance of having the holiday fall on Shabbat and taught them the correct way to say the blessing when this occurs.The 5th and 6th graders practiced singing the Ma Nishtana (Four Questiions) all together and then we talked about the 3 key concepts of the seder: Pesach, Matzah , and Maror. We ended the day by separating the children into multiple groups and they worked on holiday worksheets. Everyone seemed to enjoy this.

Have a Shabbat Shalom and I hope to see everyone on Sunday.   

Toby Schlussel