Nitzanim Unit 2 Showcase: Peace and Conflict

The Nitzanim (3rd and 4th graders) had yet another wonderful showcase! Last week, our learners, their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles all gathered together on Zoom to take part in learning together. 

We started off our showcase with a brief introduction to our process and the text we used. This unit, the Nitzanim created an online book all about the Yaakov and Eisav story, including narration and illustrations. We also worked on an advice column, answering questions with lessons we learned from the text. You can take a look at our book here!

Learners and families had an opportunity to discuss our advice column in breakout rooms. Each room had a different question, with an answer already written by the Nitzanim. After our answers were shared, we asked for some help from our families. What other advice would you give this person? 

One group had this question: “During the pandemic, it’s been hard to see people other than our family. With so much family time, it is becoming harder to have control over our feelings. What can we do?” The Nitzanim answered:

  • Ask someone for help. We learned from Yitzchak in this situation because he turned to God and asked for help when he was having a hard time. 
  • Talk with people outside of your family in other ways. It doesn’t have to be face-to-face.

Families had some interesting ideas to add:

  • Find a new hobby with your family.
  • Give everyone their space.
  • Take a deep breath and think before you speak.
  • Get some physical exercise, you don’t want to be like a tea kettle about to blow. 
  • Teach your sibling something new that you both like. 

It was so fun to get to work through this process with all of our guests! We all came back together at the end to share our 10 Commandments for Conflict Resolution. 

  1. Spend time with the other persona and do things you both like. 
  2. Don’t bring up topics that might start the argument again.
  3. Ask for help from a friend or trusted adult.
  4. Explain your feelings to the other person they understand why you might do something that they do not like. 
  5. Take some space and spend some time without them. 
  6. Ignore them, just don’t engage.
  7. Apologize to the other person if you did something wrong.
  8. Work through the problem with the other person. What started it, why does the issue keep growing, and what can we do to fix it? 
  9. Try to get to a place where you’re calm so you can look at the situation without being very hot or very cold. 
  10. Compromise, find an in-between so neither of you get exactly what you want but you each get enough to stop the argument. 

Thank you so much to everybody who attended our Unit 2 Showcase. The Nitzanim had a fabulous time working on this project, and learned a lot, both from the process and from our families’ input. We’ll see you for our Unit 3 Showcase in just a few months! 

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