Purim - Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island

Who Is in My Heart?

April 11, 2016 by ikapach

When we learned the letters kaf and lamed, we were busy with Purim, but it was a great opportunity to connect it with this special holiday.

First we learned the three ways that we can use the letter kaf and its placement in words. The children are able to recognize the words ken (yes), keter (crown), kol hakavod, kesef (silver/money), katom (the color orange), kachol (blue), and kis (pocket) for the letter kaf. For projects, we filled khaf with masechot (masks) and filled khaf sofit with a drawing of a melech (king). We couldn’t finish learning about Purim without filling in our kaf with glitter in the color of kesef (silver) or katom (the color orange), and we made a keter (crown) for Achashverosh. Lastly, we discovered that the word kis means pocket in Hebrew. After the kis (pocket) project, the children got a chocolate kiss from my kis (pocket).

We had so much fun learning the letter lamed. First we got our faces painted as leitzanim (clowns) and we learned the song “leitzan katan sheli” (my little clown).

Then we had a beautiful discussion about what’s in our lev (heart). We not only had fun making a project about it, but also sharing our thoughts with our friends.

Once we finished learning the letter lamed, we realized we could string letters together and read many words from our excellent vocabulary.

We are so excited!

We learned new Hebrew letters!

March 11, 2016 by ikapach

The main goal of our Hebrew classes for the last two weeks was to introduce the letters zayin and tet.

When we introduced the letter tet, we noticed that the sound of the letter tet is the same sound as the letter tav. We agreed that it’s a little bit confusing but as the children said, “even in English we have the letter ‘c’ that sometimes sounds like the letter ‘k’.”

Students are able to recognize the letter zayin in the words Zebra and Zachal (caterpillar), and the letter tet in the words Talit, Tavas (peacock), Telephone and Tractor.

We had a wonderful time learning about these two letters. For the letter zayin we read the story “HaZachal Haraev” (The Hungry Caterpillar). We were so excited to read this familiar story in Hebrew because we recognized so many words!

We then introduced the words Zeh (“this is,” masculine) and Zot (“this is,” feminine), and for the letter tet we learned the words Tov (“good,” masculine) and Tova (“good,” feminine”). This is a very complicated and sophisticated concept, and we will continue practicing these words. We also learned the verb Zocher (remember) and practiced making sentences!

For the letter zayin we had a great time turning the letter into the head of a Zebra and the letter tet into a Talit and Tavas (peacock). These projects will be part of our special book that will be coming home at the end of the year.

Finally we practiced writing these new letters with sand and chalk!

We have also had fun getting ready to celebrate Purim! We’ve heard and told the story, and talked about the four mitzvot of Purim. We will also be making hamantaschen to celebrate the holiday. We’ve been sure to practice being silly for Adar by wearing fun hats and hairstyles.

As always, it is such a pleasure to learn with and from your children.

Purim happenings in First Grade

March 15, 2015 by Sarah Shay-Davidson

The holiday of Purim is every kid’s perfect holiday. We dress up in fantastic costumes, eat delicious goodies and a whole day of school is devoted to celebrating with your friends and teachers.

Here is how we began our day with a coded morning message.

Purim was a fantastic day of fun. The entire school participated in the reading of the Migillah (The story of queen Esther) then all the kids were divided into three groups and enjoyed Purim stations of painting masks, Dramatic play , and made Hamentashen and cards for Mishloah Manot (Gifts of food).

We delivered with the 2nd grade to the seniors at the JCC on Friday afternoon!

The energy and joy in which the students gave their gifts was wonderful to observe. With paper Hamentashen hats and snow pants, students sang, danced and chatted with our seniors. Everyone had a wonderful time.

Check out the amazing costumes!

and finally, the Purim Puppet show was a smash success! First grade invited Pre-K and K to our special performance. First graders were so proud to host the younger students.

Our classroom was transformed into the city of Shushan, Persia!

A job well done!

Now it is time to get ready for Passover…….