Gimilut Chasadim: Acts of Loving Kindness

We have been working on Jewish Values for the last year. The children learn about them and live them in their classrooms and the teachers have been documenting about them all year.
It is so wonderful to know that the parents are modeling these values for their kids!
A few weeks ago one of our 2 1/2 year olds was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. As you can imagine all of our families have been so upset about this! Every parents worse night mere!
The room parents in this little guys class organized some classroom projects for this family. The letter from the room parents is printed below because it is so amazing!
I am so proud to be part of such an amazing Kehilah, community, who truly cares about each other!
I took out the family's name for them for confidentiality.

Good Morning!
Katie and I want to thank each and every one of you for your help in creating this for our fellow preschool Family. It came together beautifully. In addition to all the fantastic words of encouragement, hopes, prayers and quotes we all provided; Katie attached a card to the middle of the infinity symbol with the quote by Thomas Jefferson “When you reach the end of your rope, tie another knot in it and hang on”. We weaved a dark gray ribbon into the entire infinity symbol rope; as gray is the color for Brain Cancer Awareness. (I actually have a TON of the gray ribbon left; so if anyone wants to make a simple brain cancer awareness pin to wear, please let me know and I’ll send some ribbon to school for you). Our kids even worked together to decorate the box to give it to them in. I have attached a picture of the finished project.



Here is the note I composed for the family to include in the box:



“WHEN YOU REACH THE END OF YOUR ROPE, TIE ANOTHER KNOT IN IT AND HANG ON”

Thomas Jefferson





This Rope of Encouragement was created for you and your family as a token of love, prayer, and support. We all worked together to make sure that you know that we are ALWAYS here for you and your family during this difficult time.



This Rope of Encouragement symbolizes many different things:



Infinity Shape: There is no end to our love, prayer, and support we will offer to your family.
Words of Encouragement: Always know that we are there to support, encourage, and help in any way that we can…both physically and spiritually. We encourage you and your family to write additional thoughts and tie it to this rope, so that no matter what, you will never have to feel like there isn’t enough to hold on to.
Gray Ribbon border: Gray Ribbon is the symbol for Brain Cancer Awareness.
We are here for you no matter what, and will do whatever we can to help you and your family.



Love, Prayers, Serenity, and Hope for ever and always,

In addition to the rope they also made a fleece blanket for the little boy with a photograph of his class on it. He can be wrapped in the love of his class!

If your eyes are welling up, every time I think of this little guy or what the class has done I have tears streaming down my face.
Please put our little guy in your prayers too.

Hachnasat Orchim

We have two preK classes. One of the classes invited the other class to a Shabbat Party. They made cookies and set the tables and served Challah, Grape juice, cheese, veggies and cookies. They had the Shabbat Seder, enjoyed the snack and sang songs together. The following Monday the other prek class sent a Thank you picture for the fun party. This is such a wonderful way to teach children about welcoming guests and taking care of your guests. The children enjoyed their time together.

In the two three year old classes the children drew names and had "play buddies" who they took care of to learn about being a good host/guest. The host kids served snack to the guest kids and everyone had a great time!

Dibuk Chaverim

Pre-K Friendship Quilt

Teachers have been so focused on Dibuk Chaverim (cleaving to friends) I am realizing that between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that is one of the most appropriate Jewish Value we can teach. We do not focus on saying you are sorry, we focus on being the best kid you can be. The best daughter/son, sister or brother you can be as well as emotions and what makes people happy and sad.

Pictured below is a project one of the prek classes did. The kids were asked what makes a you a good friend. I loved their answers.

The kids also made a friendship quilt by each child making a square and the teacher put all the squares together.

Young children are developmentally very self centered. They need to be taught to appreciate and be thankful

for what they have. The PreK kids were learning about Modeh Ani and thanking God for waking up each day as well as the blessings in our lives. We asked the kids to think about what they were thankful for. We got everything from puppies, kittens, princesses, power rangers and mommies and daddies! Each Shabbat during Shabbat singing we sing a song called Baruch Atah Adonai thank you God and after we thank God for candles, challah, wine, mommies and daddies then we let the kids say what they are thankful for. We get many of the above answers and also some kids are thankful for different animals, butterflies and many other things. It is our responsibility as teachers to help kids as well as all of us think about how fortunate we are and remember to always be thankful!

School is up and running! The teachers of the 3 year olds made the bulletin board pictured above. As the kids each behave in ways that show kindness to friends as well as being good friends we have taken pictures with their explanation of what is going on and then posted it. The kids love making and having good friends and this is the perfect value to start the school year off with!

Camp ends with some wonderful values in action!

A few continuations of wonderful events! Several weeks ago we noticed a mama bird sitting on a makeshift nest in our chopped rubber on the toddler playground. The bird got very nervous when the kids got too close so we closed off that playground, because it is our job to respect and protect animals, as we know from our study of the Jewish value, tza'ar ba'alay chayim.
Miss Susie's 3 year olds made the project above after watching the egg hatch. The kids loved seeing the baby bird.

I have already told you about our wonderful garden. After we planted, watered and then harvested pickling cucumbers the kids made pickles with the cukes. It was such a wonderful all camp experience! The smallest kids put the cucumbers in the jar, the oldest kids put in all of the spices and the middle kids put in all the liquid. Everyone loved making the pickles and we cannot wait to taste them! Please see the pictures of a few of the steps and the finished product!

Kindness to animals, Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim is one of my favorite Jewish Values for kids because most kids love animals! We enjoyed learning about lady bugs and we put them in our garden so they could help us take care of our garden! The kids also took ladybugs home for their gardens.
They made a duck pond with fish and learned about our responsibility to help keep lakes and ponds clean.
They brought a favorite animal (stuffed) to share their Shabbat Party incorporating inviting guests for Shabbat.
We have had a great summer!

The third session of camp was so much fun. Our theme was Tekun olam, Repairing our world and Bal Tash Chit preserving and taking care of our world.
All of our art projects revolved around recycled materials.
The kids made friends out of toilet paper rolls and other recycled materials. Most cities have teacher recycling centers where they can buy everything from cardboard and yarn to fun foil papers. Check out where your local recycle center is if you have not already been to it. For you lucky people in the North East and close to Boston they have a fabulous place!
We have an organic garden where the kids planted a pumpkin patch, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, radishes and a variety of other vegies. The children love watering the plants and picking ripe vegetables. They then eat them for snack. Gardening is so fabulous for little kids as well as for our world!
Tikun Olam and Bal Tash Chit are fabulous themes for camp as well as school!

The theme for our second session of camp was Shalom Bayit, Peace in the home. We started with a pre-Father's Day Donuts for Dad before Shabbat Singing. Everyone loved it! We actually served donut holes because they are the right size for preschoolers.
Some of the art projects were a family mobile, it was a house with the kids actual address ( so they were learning their addresses) and then stick people for each of their family members and of course pets. This was a very cute project and the kids loved it!
When the children built their Village Shalom pictured above they talked about the importance of having peaceful homes and classrooms. They finger painted the grass and dirt and designed the houses with chalk, water colors, stickers and glue and foam shapes creating a village of shalom where they could pretend to go to each other's houses in their neighborhood. I am told by parents that the kids play for months with the projects they bring home from this classroom!

Dibuk Chavarim, Caring for Friendships, has been the theme of the first two weeks of camp.
In the prek group the kids learned Henai Matov U'Maniyim as well as played games with learning names of all their friends in their group and talking about the importance of knowing people's names.
Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold. These words in this song helped the kids realize the importance of friends, old and new!
The next day the kids were given a rock and told to note everything about the rock. They then closed their eyes and pictured their rocks and finally put their rocks in a box with other kids rocks and they could each find their own rock. When the kids talked about the importance of looking friends in the eyes when they talked they realized their rocks needed eyes so they put googly eyes on their rocks and then they named them and got to take them home to keep their new friends. The kids learned how important it is to notice everything about your friends because each person is different and special and that is how you show you care about them!

Jewish Values at Camp

Camp 2011 starts in a little over 2 weeks and we are wrapping up the plans!
We are using Midot, Jewish Values as our session themes.
The Midot we will focus on are: Dibuk Chaverim, Cleaving to Friends
Shalom Bayit, Peace in the home
Hachnasat Orchim: Hospitality, welcoming guests
Tikun Olam, Making our world a better place
Bal Tashchit: Do not destroy
Tza'ar Ba'alei Kindness to Animals
Some of the special activities we will be doing are: Friendship Circle and pretend camp fire with our music teacher singing with us.
Raising lady bugs and then releasing them
We have an organic garden we will be gardening in
We are having a donuts for dad breakfast before Shabbat singing one morning
And so many other activities that are not directly related to the midot but are a lot of fun because camp is all about fun. Needless to say the kids are learning in almost every activity they participate it!

Today at our staff meeting 2 pairs of teachers presented their classroom experiences with lessons on Jewish Values.
The first to present was the pair of teachers who have the young three year olds. They have been talking to the children about Bikur Cholim (Visiting the sick) and they told the kids about a teacher who had fractured a bone in her foot and is in a wheel chair. They talked about what you can say to someone who has hurt themself or is sick and then they brought this teacher flowers and told her to feel better quickly and other beautiful phrases they have learned. It was an amazing experience to watch these little ones really care about a teacher that they don't know.
The older three year olds, most are 4 or turning four soon were talking about Sayver Panim Yafot, having a cheerful attitude. They made clown feet to walk in the ways of God and they made fun silly ties to be happy and funny and they made great hats and inside the hat was the following: Let you clown feet carry you quickly to greet others
Have a good heart and always be kind
Wear a smile on your face and keep a silly red nose on so you can make others laugh
Put your hat on your head and make sure you use your heard (your brains) to be wise and to study Torah.
(Shhhh!-Keep these secrets under your hat!)
Clearly the kids cannot read this but the parents can and it reinforces what the kids have learned while teaching the parents the values we are teaching their kids. This little poem was written by Susie Blackman, the teacher in this class.

Today at our weekly staff meeting we started a new project. Each week a team of teachers will be presenting a section of the Journey Guide's Ethical Behavior.
Today a team from a three year old class presented a cute puppet show for Hashavat Avaydah, returning lost property. The story in the guide was perfect to act out with puppets and I bet most schools already have puppets for the animals, tha Rabbi and his wife. The question, how do you feel when you return something a friend has lost is a great question for an older three year old or a young 4. Kids this age can really relate to this question.
The teachers did a great job presenting today and I am looking forward to the future presentations.

My staff made my week at our staff meeting on Wednesday! My long term goal of directing a Jewish Preschool is to know Jewish Values are being stressed and taught!
My teachers said now that we have been working on stressing Jewish Values so long it really has come to the front of our minds and we find ourselves framing conversations with the children around Jewish values. I feel like we are teaching kids to be menshes and the kids are getting it. A little boy found a dinosaur on the playground. This child might not have given the dino to a teacher in the past however he brought it to the teacher and said we need to find who lost this because it is important to return lost items to their owners. The children had learned about Hashavat Avaydiah in class and this little guy got it! The next day when we found the owner we made the connection between the two kids.
In a prek class someone had drawn on a table. The teacher talked to the kids about respecting and taking care of our property, Bal Tashcheet. The teacher also told the kids she did not want them to tell her who they thoght did it, Shmirat Lashon. If someone saw another person with their own two eyes they should go to that person and remind them to take care of our toys and equiptment. The kids seemed to really get this concept. It is amazing to watch them process this information! We are hearing children talk about doing the right thing. These children are ripe for learning about kindness, compasion and how we should live.

Shabbat Family Party

Today one of the three year old classes had a Shabbat Family Party.
The children made center pieces, decorated the room, each decorated a letter in the big sign welcoming everyone and made a Shabbat Present for their parents. The Shabbat Present was a decorated plaque with the blessing of the children on it.
Each family was also given a lovely pamphlet from Berman House Publications with the Shabbat Seder in it which is very user friendly.
The children were chanting Hachnasat Orchim (welcoming guests) all the way down to the party room. They gave tzdakeah on the way into the room and sat with their family guests.
Rabbi Tobin led the families in the Shabbat Seder and then everyone ate the food the children had prepared. They ended the party with the modified Birkat Hamazon our children recite every day after snack. The children enjoyed sharing their Shabbat party with their families while they learned the beautiful value of Hachnasat Orchim.

Beginning notes from the Director of Early Childhood Education

A bit of an introduction to start my blogging adventures! I have been the director at Beth Shalom's preschool for the last 16 1/2 years. This preschool has been around for over 60 years and is a wonderful preschool with a very rich history in Jewish Early Childhood Education.
I was so excited when Max informed me that we were going to be part of the vision documentation project!

Max came last week and did a fabulous in-service with our staff on Jewish Ethics and values in our classrooms. While we have always stressed ethical and moral behavior in our classrooms, with the exception of one of our 3 year old classes we have not focused on labeling most of these values. We have always labeled Tikun Olam and Tzedakah but we have not labeled other values consistently.

As we were processing "Why are Jewish Values important in the life our classrooms?" some of the comments teachers made were:

• They help us live a life of meaning,
• Shalom Bayit
• God gave us the values and laws, more laws than any other people-a blue print to live by.

This was a very interesting and insightful exercise!

Max helped us process and focus on the importance of including the Hebrew names of Jewish Values as well as incorporating as many Jewish Values into daily classroom activities and curriculum as possible.
 Today in her weekly newsletter to the parents, one of the preK teachers reported her class would be focusing on Derech Eretz-common courtesy, treating every person with respect. This is a very appropriate and timely value to teach preK kids second semester, as they are getting testy with adults as well as their classmates! The other beauty of this newsletter note is we are teaching many of the parents as we teach the children.

Tomorrow in our weekly staff meeting we will be talking about how each class will be enriching their future curriculum.

Please check back as we continue down this road of growing and improving our wonderful school!