Morah Schlussel Update

Dear Parents,

This week at Shaarey Zedek Religious school was a little different from other weeks at school.

On Sunday, the 5th grade classes had the opportunity to go on a Jewish Detroit tour. They had been  prepared for this trip by a docent from the Jewish Historical Society and the trip was a very meaningful experience. One of the highlights was the former Shaarey Zedek building on Chicago Blvd

For  the rest of the students , the day began with Teffilot. The students had a choice of one of two minyanim that they could go to.

After minyan, our sixth grade classes spent a good part of the day learning with a "Sofer" (a Jewish scribe) about Teffilin. They learned about how they are made, what they are made of , what is written on them, when one wears them  etc.They even got the chance to try to writ one of the letters with a quill.

During the time the 6th grade was with the Sofer, our 4th graders were learning with their Hebrew teachers.

My 4th graders covered page 52 in the Hasefer and in honor of Yom Haatzmaut,which was celebrated Thursday, we read page 68 , the Hatikvah.
After reading it and timing ourselves reading it and competing against each other in that way, we also sang it.The children had a great time doing that with the Hatikvah.

My 6th graders also reviewed reading and singing the Hatikvah on page 68 in the

Hasefer.

On Tuesday, instead of Teffilah, we went right to class. I had the 5th grade  for the first part of the day and we covered page 60  and the beginning of page 61 in the Hasefer and then we also had a chance to review the reading and singing of the Hatikvah on page 68.

Please review all the reading pages that we covered in class with your children. This will reinforce what we learned in school and will really help them to become good Hebrew readers.

The remainder of the day on Tuesday was spent doing an activity about getting to know Jews from around the world. All the students went to four stations to learn about Jews from Morocco, India, the Western Americas and Israel. They all had passports that were stamped after visiting each of those four parts of the world.

In my station, Morocco, Morah Edna , who was born there , told us about how Jews celebrated the end of Passover with a feast called the Memoona. She taught us a few words in Moroccan as well.

To close out the day we went to an Israeli Shuk where we ate falafel, humus, and pita bread and candy from Israel.

It was a great Yom Haatzmaut activity celebrating Israel's Independence Day.

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

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