We’re so excited to have our kindergarten students join us this week! We’ll spend our first weeks getting to know each other and laying the groundwork to collaborate on our Makom Community Brit.
A Brit is an amazingly special kind of promise. It’s the Hebrew word used when God tells Noah that the world will never be flooded again, and it’s the same word when Abraham is promised many descendants and special place to live. We’ll be exploring brit as a special two-way promise: I’ll do this, and you’ll do that. In our shulchanot avodah (learning centers) in the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring what makes Makom Community such a special place where our students can learn and grow as they follow their own interests.
Each day begins gathered around the snack table. We’ll get to hear about each others’ days and begin the process of exploring and learning together. Around the snack table this week, we’ll explore these texts and really play with their complexities:
Be holy for I, your God, am holy. (Leviticus 19:2)
Love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)
Here are some of the questions we’ll explore in relation to the week’s texts:
- Who are my neighbors?
- Can I list all the people I saw today?
- Who do I usually notice? Who might I not notice?
- When do I show love?
- When do I feel love?
- Could noticing, feeling love, and showing love be ways to be holy?
- Could making sure my neighbors have enough food to eat be a way to be holy?
- Could making sure my neighbors know they are my neighbors be a way to be holy?
- All our shulchanot avodah (centers) will be in conversation with these questions, too. Since our new Makom Community friends are some of the first neighbors we’re getting to know, we’ll be playing get-to-know-you games.
At our tzedakah (charity) corner, we’ll explore organizations in our city that serve our neighbors– Manna, Play on Philly, and Project Home. Then we will draw pictures of our neighbors who aren’t served by these organizations. Our older students will help research Philadelphia-based organizations that serve the neighbors we listed and share that information with our younger students.
In Omanut (Art), we’ll be drawing all the people we see each day.
We’ll also be playing with Hebrew letters at our sensory table, exploring showing and feeling love through dramatic play, and making up our own songs about love in the music center.
On Wednesday—our first half-day for both Chester Arthur & Greenfield Elementary Schools—we’ll go on a nature walk. We’ll collect late summer/early fall items to display at our nature table, and we’ll also explore ways that we an show love for our environment.
Can’t wait to start our first week with all our new students!