We had a pajama fashion show, read a bedtime story, hibernated under our tables with blankets, pillows, books and flashlights and later on had a special treat of blueberry pancakes!
From Boston to Israel with Love! by Stephanie Rotsky and Ellen Berkowitz The entire Rashi School community got involved in sending love, encouragement, sweet new year's wishes and a spirited affirmation that we are thinking about you to families living in the southern region of Israel. CJP's initiative - Sweet Wishes for a Sweeter New Year - engaged students and families all over the Greater Boston area during the High Holidays in reaching out and showing our enduring connection and support for Israel & her people through heart-felt beautiful new year's cards. It was a privilege to be in every classroom last month to work with students and teachers to create these cards for Israeli families. Might we even say it felt like a sacred moment... Dena Rashes, Rashi parent and CJP Israel participant, will be part of an upcoming mission to help hand- deliver these new year's cards to families living in southern Israel. Thank you, Dena! ...
Rehearsal for Grade 2 play As part of the Rashi Theater Program students learn the skill of playwriting. This process starts in Grade 2 with their work, "Diary of a Rashi Second Grader." In this process the students learn about monologues and dialogues and how to write in the basic playwriting format. In Grade 2, the diary entries become their monologue. Monologues are a great way to talk about emotions and express what the "character" is thinking. They learn that dialogues are just a conversation. We work on this process together as a big group and we spend time talking about the possible topics for the dialogues and then brainstorm character options, setting options and list a few facts that can become the main part of a character's speech. Students learn that anything can speak in a play, yes even a rock or the Charles River. The best part is watching the "voice" of the character come alive as they practice saying the line and writing what th...
Preparing Ourselves for the High Holidays: One Word and Action at a Time! I recently read this: Words matter. They are packages of power that can harm or help... And so my work with the First Grade Students began with reading our first two TREASURES of the year - Gershon's Monster and Mr. Peabody's Apples . Many of the social justice TREASURES read and discussed this year will be anchored in a particular Jewish text, mitzvah or Jewish value. I introduced the Ecclesiastes text below to lay the groundwork for reading and delving deep into the big messages of these two stories: Gershon's Monster retold by Eric Kimmel Smith What happens when a young man named Gershon sweeps his mistakes into his cellar every week, empties his mistakes in the sea every Rosh Hashanah and never says sorry or thinks twice about his words or actions? His mistakes catch up with him in a serious way!!! ...