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.