January 30, 2014 "Why, yes! Love IS our middle name!" Temple Ahavat Achim, Gloucester MA

ONE SCHOOL ONE BOOK: Read "A Hannukah Eve in Warsaw" and "The Fools of Chelm and the Stupid

Carp" for Sunday, February 9

TAA teens and tweens and parents and Adam

Smith

In Jewish Yearly Practice and Lifecycle Events with Morah Laila, How do I make decisions? Does our tradition have any wisdom that is relevant to today? Adam Smith, executive director of North Shore Teen Initiative was our guest teacher.

Adam brought 4 different scenarios of

COME MAKE PURIM

PUPPETS!

Sunday, February 23,

10AM-1PM at TAA

rsvp

PHOEBE

Be happy....it's ADAR!

-Josh and Gilad make "trouble"

In Jewish Daily Practice and the 613 with Morah Laila, we practiced reading Hebrew using the Ashrei prayer sheets which have Hebrew, transliteration and translation line by line. In chevruta (learning pairs) each student read a line of Hebrew only while his or her chevruta checked the transliteration.

current ethical questions and we discussed them in groups. Then we looked at some tradtional sources to see if any of them resonated with our answers or our thinking. A favorite seemed to be, "If you are in a place where no one is acting like a human being, act like a human being."

Going back to our charts of Jewish practice and highlighting actions that resonate with each of us.

Today we had 10 minutes to work, so we did not do much talking. We prepared Yerushalayim Shel Zahav for our concert. Our final concert date will be during our Purim celebration in March. In Visual Midrash, the Parshah Players investigated Ki Tisa for this week's Learner's Minyan. August remembered the parshah in great detail, right down to the melting of the calf, grinding it to powder and feeding it to the unfaithful. Madison kept time as

-Tovah, August, August and Rebecca take a break from doing a mitzvah at The Open Door in Gloucester.

What's ISAIAH 58? Ask a bnei mitzvah student. They can tell you how they are taking the words of the prophet (to let the oppressed go free....to share your bread with the hungry..) and putting it into ACTION.

This week they helped to serve a meal to poor folks at The Open Door Food Pantry

Learning about the 3rd paragraph of the Shema and kissing tzitzit! In Visual Midrash with Morah Phoebe, we assigned the characters we've read about in Torah and midrash with different kinds of "trouble-making" qualities to see if making trouble is always a bad thing. Josh and Gilad came up with the longest list, and explained that Abraham was causing good trouble if he was speaking up on behalf of people in Sodom and Gomorrah. Daniel said that he caused a good kind of trouble when Abram hid Sarai from Pharaoh as self-defense. Next up: Trouble at home-- Yakov tricking the hungry Esau.

Today we combined 2-5 grades. We explored Oseh Shalom, Ushavtem Mayim, and began working on our Purim song, Purim Lanu. Next week we are going to start with singing through the shabbat candle blessings, and learn Purim Lanu and Chag

Purim (RASHRASHRASH)!

each player told the story in her own words in one minute, then 30 seconds (Grace Shaina), 15 (Rebecca), 10 (Tovah) and -gulp- 5 seconds.

We learned about the main characters in the Purim story this week. We acted out the story and drew pictures of each of the characters. Then we read the story of Issac and Rebekah and added the story to the Torah's we're creating.

Next class we shall continue working on the Purim story, as well as continue with our Torah's. How does the Purim story show Kavod? We only had two kids in the class today, so maintaining kavod was important to talk about. We sang our Oseh Shalom and Ushavtem Mayim, and also "Oh

with TAA members Marian and Bill Siegel. Next month, they will be planting seeds with The Backyard Growers to grow seedlings so needy families can grow their own vegetables in their own backyards!

You'll also be seeing more of us at Shabbat morning services, as we work towards our Bat Mitzvahs!

FAMILY MINYAN 9AM SHARP

in the Sanctuary at TAA

EVERY SUNDAY WE

HAVE SCHOOL!

Theme for all classes this week:

Be happy- it's ADAR!

6th/7th Grade & 4th/5th We incorporated more Purim vocab

In Heroes of the Torah with Morah Laila, we joined forces with the 4/5 grades and we finished our exploration of the choice points of characters in the Book of Esther. Would you speak up like Mordechai if you heard about a plot to kill the King, even if you didn't know what might happen to you? Would you risk your life, like Queen Esther to save your people? Would you have Hamen hanged?

Treely noted that he would weigh the seriousness of a bad action by another to decide

Today." We followed up by sharing our ideas about how Esther and Mordechai showed kavod in the Purim story. Next week, villain Haman will be making an appearance in K-1 and teaching the Chag Purim song. "Be good to your neighbor means that if you want a clementine for snack-time...you should also give your neighbor a clementine." ~ Jack

Respect others

Respect yourself

Respect this synagogue

Cavod means respect. But what does that look like? How would I know people were being respectful by looking at them? What would they be doing? Saying? Not saying?

Some examples from this week:

When Madison hugged Lydia when we realized that she was not yet part of

into our active listening games this week. We learned a Purim song students were able to translate the whole thing! Tovah & Madison then continued working dligently on their reading/writing programs, while Nadav, August, & Rebecca made a tsvet madlik (a GREAT team- tzevet madlik- clap!) writing riddles for the Purim characters! 2nd/3rd Grade & 4th/5th: During active game time, we reinforced the Purim vocab that we started learning last time. Izi did a nice job taking roll for the 2nd/3rd grade (in Hebrew, of course). Then she,Thurston and Treely continued w/their reading programs. The 4th/5th graders began learning numbers up to 100- and played a game for reinforcement. The competition was fierce-- but in the end the score was pretty evenly tied between Gilad and Jamie. Rematch to come! Next time, we look forward to more PURIM-related Hebrew fun! Til then-

Have a SHAVUAH SABABBA (a

super-duper week) SHAVUAH SABABBA (clap!) & Chodesh Adar Samayach (happy month of Adar!)

whether it was worth the risk of him speaking up. Izi said she would always put the king's life before her own.

Next up: the Fab Four Mitzvot of Purim

-G-d is everywhere, even in legos In Visual Midrash with Morah Phoebe we made a schedule for our lego animation midrash (How G-d decided to make humans on the 6th day of creation) that includes time to take the photos and to edit. We also discussed kavod behavior with sharing our legos and when is it OK to dismantle someone else's design. We talked about how to show angels, which are actually "messengers" with one leg and foot, and thought about how to show G-d if you can't make

the community at Joey's Bar Mitzvah.

Tovah really wanted the 10 second slot of the parshah skit. Rebecca graciously traded with her.

Josh's poor choice in a game in Visual Midrash was the last straw for the Morah, who ended the game. Even though he was not the only one who exhibited un-kavod like behavior, he took responsibility and apologized to the group.

Treely expressed his feelings beautifully that the lego sharing set-up was unfair. Thurston agreed to bring a few of the coveted lego tools to share next week. Izi brought and shared all her legos without prompting from the teacher.

Marilyn Kramer bought lunch for the students and the parents for the meeting with NSTI. Morah Laila devoted her class time to the meeting for all TAA teens.

Morah Elana :)

an image of G-d. Treely made G-d by forming two lego "yudim." We also agreed that we should do scenes of humans doing positive things and negative things to illustrate the argument of the angels. Next up: backgrounds and characters.

Phoebe Potts, SCRS Head Teacher

Phone: (978) 281-0739 x6 Web and Email

Address: 86 Middle St., Gloucester, MA

01930