Naomi Stein 
One of the biggest celebrations that takes place in kindergarten is the Naming Ceremony. This important milestone event highlights the beginning of our young students’ journey into literacy – in both English and Hebrew. Focusing on names gives our children an opportunity to begin exploring their Jewish identities through their naming story.
Certain mantras that infuse our curriculum come from the Design Thinking mindsets that we practice in TikkunXDesign. The mindset constraints drive creativity is especially prevalent in art. By imposing constraints, Joe Mirsky, art teacher extraordinaire, challenges his students to think outside the box. A great example of this principle is the attachment test. The idea is simple: encourage children to design creative ways to attach objects together without using glue or tape. Once students demonstrate mastery in an attachment test, glue and tape become available for use in art class.
It has long been a JCDSRI tradition that our 5th grade class travels to Camp Isabella Freedman in CT to participate in a 4 day environmental retreat with a Jewish lens. This year’s trip was picked up by our local paper, Jewish Rhode Island. Read more about what our students got out of the trip and what lessons they brought home with them.
Teva program inspires JCDSRI students to help heal the earth
Sunday, February 10
10:30 – 11:30am
Join us for an active morning of fun and games with our beloved kindergarten teacher, Emily Dennen! We’re going to get our bodies moving with yoga and movement.
Everybody is welcome and the program is free.
To RSVP or for more information, contact Naomi
The first grade student beamed with pride while surveying the 1,000 cans piled in our entryway that we’ve collected for local food banks. Recounting what he’s learned about tzedekah from his teachers, he explained to me that he now feels an obligation to help others. During our conversation, we talked about the many ways people choose to help, including donating to JCDSRI. He took my hand gently, saying:
In that moment, I realized that the impact of our donors goes far beyond supporting our educational program. The people who contribute to our school serve as powerful role models for our young students, demonstrating – in the words of Mister Rogers – that “one of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation.” Our school’s hundreds of graduates carry with them the understanding that they were once beneficiaries of another’s kindness and, in return, they are committed to giving back. They are working hard to make the world a better place: collaborating with locals in developing nations to ensure the accessibility of safe drinking water, founding innovative and thriving centers for Jewish learning, volunteering with young children who are struggling to gain literacy skills, and connecting with others through their humor, music, or athletic skills.
Within the next month, we will kickoff our Annual Campaign. The support of our donors is vital as we continue to enhance our programs, including our security and technology upgrades, our partnerships with Brown University and the Islamic School of RI, the addition of a school social worker and extra reading support personnel, and the opening of the Lillian Denn Newman and Sylvia Vogel Zimet Learning Center. We recognize that this degree of momentum isn’t possible without our partners who know the value of a JCDSRI education.
“I’m learning that I need to ‘walk the walk’ at our school. It’s not enough to talk about changing the world – you have to actually do it.” The fifth grader pauses, and then continues, “I realize that we can’t leave it to other people. We need to be the ones to act. And we need to have hope.”
Hope. In Hebrew, tikvah. The word stems from kavah, a cord made of several individual strands twisted together for strength. Hope, like the strands in a cord, bind us to each other, to our obligations, and to our future. It motivates us to try. It is not an abstract or pollyannaish concept but instead, as the psychologist Charles Snyder explains, one that requires the articulation of specific goals, the ability to imagine the paths forward, and the capacity to persevere – even in the face of challenges. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains: “Hope is the belief that we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope is an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist but it does need courage to hope.”
It also takes courage to acknowledge that our future depends on us. “Sometimes we are afraid to grow because we have more responsibilities,” explains a JCDSRI fourth grader. “But we need to push forward and make the world a better place.” Listening to our students contemplate their responsibilities and the role that hope plays in their lives, I am reminded of the words of Marian Wright Edelson, educator and activist: “Education is for improving the lives of others and leaving your community and your world better than you found it.” I am proud that at JCDSRI our students are learning to “walk the walk” and are motivated by hope.
As a Jewish school, we teach our students the story of Hanukkah. As a progressive school, we encourage our students to interpret and relate to the story of the holiday in their own way. First graders represented themes of the holiday in Lego creations. (A class favorite!) Students also practiced literacy skills by sequencing the Hanukkah story and telling it in their own words. Here they are reading their version of the Hanukkah story:
As a progressive school, our teachers seek out areas of integration within our curriculum. With the holiday of Tu B’shvat (the Jewish New Year for trees) approaching, second grade teachers worked collaboratively, weaving the theme into many subject areas. Students are reading poetry about trees and learning about the important role trees play in our environment using the scientific guiding question, “how can we work together to solve problems?” This question also happens to be a focus of second grade’s Social/Emotional curriculum which is reinforced through the literacy and science explorations.
Spreading Tu B’shvat spirit to the rest of the school, the class will perform a Readers Theater production next week based on the story, Save the Lofty Trees by Leslie Mills. Readers Theater performances help students build fluency, confidence and stamina in reading – important second grade skills. Rhonda Mills, second grade’s Judaics Studies teacher, translated parts of the script so the students will perform in both Hebrew and English. They will also include Hebrew and Tu B’shvat songs accompanied by our resident musician, Chris Southiere. Introducing another subject area into the unit, second graders have been busy in TikkunXDesign building props for their production.
Second grade students completed beautiful nature-themed watercolors with specific direction from our art teacher, Mr. Mirsky. He introduced students to a number of techniques including using salt to create a marble effect and using a straw to spread the paint into thin lines. These paintings have been paired with Haikus that the students wrote during their poetry unit. They are on display in our school’s main hallway. Visitors are in for a treat!
It’s great to have life
Fresh air water crunchy leaves
Fit peace in your life
Good smelling flowers
Blue jays flying in the sky
Bright stars in the sky
Stars are in the sky
Bees pollinating flowers
Sheep in their warm wool
The mountains are cool
Rocks are different colors
Climb the steep mountain
Pre-K students have been very busy learning about and celebrating Hanukkah. After decorating their classroom, they learned the Hanukkah story as well as many songs in both Hebrew and English. Students created their very own Hanukkiyot (Hanukkah Menorahs) and were excited to bring them home to light during the holiday.
Expanding upon some of the themes of the holiday (oil, light and darkness), the class did experiments using oil and water and learned about people who are visually impaired. Children even learned about the Braille alphabet, wrote their names in Braille and created a class Hanukkiyah in Braille.
The celebrating continued for 8 days with cookie decorating, treats of Sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), and, of course, more singing! Children created beautiful drip mats using Popsicle sticks, glue and glitter (their favorite!) to go under their Hanukkiyot.
Pre-K students were able to perform some of their new songs in front of the whole school at one of our school-wide Hanukkiyah lighting assemblies. On the last day, families and friends will join the class for a special holiday party.
