Getting used to kids back in school and parents working from home or the office is a huge adjustment for all our families right now! Makom Community is so glad to be a part of the support system holding your family through this transition. This week, Center City and South Philly families met with Beverly, Amanda, and Leah to hear…
Category: Learning this Week
If I Am Not For Myself, Then Who Is For Me?
This week, our learners looked at the Pirkei Avot 1:14 text: “Rabbi Hillel used to say, If I am not for myself, who is for me?” As well as the story from Shabbat 31a:6, “Another time a non-Jew came before Shammai and said, ‘I will convert if you can teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot.’…
If Not Now…When?
With fall in the air and the High Holidays behind us, we were excited to experience this joyful five-day week with students! We explored Jewish wisdom around boundary setting, independence, communication, and the importance of treating others with kindness. I was blown away by how much these kiddos already know about themselves and their needs. During shulchanot avodah students had…
We Are All Created Betzelem Elohim, In the Image Of God
This week we celebrated Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday where we finish reading the Torah and go all the way back to the beginning! It’s a time where we can sing, dance, and laugh, as we celebrate the Torah and new beginnings! Many kiddos have expressed that it is their favorite Jewish holiday. This week, Garinim answered big questions like:…
Support and Connection
This week as we considered how loving our neighbors shapes our relationships with ourselves, each other, and our world. Student’s displayed true examples of introspection, collaboration, and chesed (kindness). We sat together in the yard taking in the crisp fall air as we discussed different support systems. Learners talked about bridges and other physical support systems. Olivia and I made…
The Whole Torah On One Foot
Our Makom @ Home learners have been working hard and playing hard all month long! We have set out on “Textsploration” expeditions journeying through all the Fall Jewish holidays and singing songs about them too, including this one by Billy Jonas. Our last text for Simchat Torah, the holiday where we finish reading the end of the torah and start over…
BMitzvah Update!
We are getting into the swing of things in BMitzvah class! During Sukkot, we were ate snack and had Tefillah in the sukkah, incorporating shaking the lulav and etrog into Tefillah. That was super fun! In text study each day, our learners are asking rich questions and creating their own commentary. Everyone decorated a binder…
Welcoming Sukkot in Our Sukkah!
Sukkot is here! Our sukkah is up! Makom Community is ready celebrate with our neighbors and strangers! Last week, we explored the commandment to love our neighbors and this week, we unpacked it’s equally important counterpart: to love the stranger and treat them as one of our own people (Leviticus 19:33-34). The Garinim pondered questions like: Who is a stranger?…
Neighbors and Strangers in the Sukkah
This week we gathered in celebration of Sukkot and discussed pieces of the Torah related to concepts of neighbors, strangers, and welcoming. Learners shared wisdom with one another as we dug into questions which helped us unpack the relationship between ourselves and the world around us. As we sat around tables underneath the sunshine inside the Sukkah, kiddos grappled with…
Love & Forgiveness: How Can We Be Better Neighbors In The New Year?
This week, we reflected on how the torah may guide our emotions and practiced fixing our mistakes by going over the steps on how to ask forgiveness and how to be thoughtful as we tell people about what upset us. On Monday we read this set of rules from the torah: “ You will not hate your sibling in your heart. Gently…
High Holidays and Beyond!
As we closed our learning about Rosh Hashanah last week, we began reflecting on ideas about Yom Kippur. Although September is full of short weeks, we are packing in all kinds of creative and engaging opportunities for joy and growth. During these two weeks we have been discussing community, neighbors, how we treat one another, how we understand and rectify…
BMitzvah Beginnings!
BMitzvah has been off to a great start this year. I have been delighted to find the learners all know each other quite well across the grades, enjoy talking, being silly, and learning together. We have been spending snack time these first few days out on Sansom Street playing some games to get to know each other more. Our first…
What Makes A Community?
During this short week of Jewish Enrichment in Center City, we shared our own Rosh Hashanah celebrations and gave thought to the question: what makes up a community? Some kiddos in Garinim thought that a community was: A school or afterschool A group of people, plants, and animals A school inside of a school How do we make a community?…
Jewish Enrichment Opens In South Philly
Our first week of Jewish Enrichment has come and gone and what a week it has been. We are so lucky to have this special group of students in our very first year of Jewish Enrichment at Makom Community South Philly. Thank you for being part of our community and trusting us with your kiddos! This week our youngest learners…
Welcome Back to Jewish Enrichment in Center City!
Welcome back to Jewish Enrichment at Makom Community! What a fabulous (and also semi crazy) first week of learning and playing with your kiddos. We started off our week with some name games, get-to-know-you-ing, and conversations about how to keep ourselves and each other safe and happy. We also started learning about the upcoming holiday, Rosh HaShanah (Jewish New Year)….
South Philly’s Last Week of School’s Out Camp
This week we were so thrilled to welcome you, our Makom South Philly Community, into our space for the second week of camp! We started off the week with placemaking activities. The Nitzinim examined placemaking as they considered what their space needed. Then they created an environment that met their needs including a leggo corner and a cozy Pinat Shalom…
Makom @ Home Fall 2021
Last year, we wanted to bring our FABULOUS Makom Community learning to kids across the country, so we launched Makom @ Home. This year, we are offering it in an even more flexible way. Ages We will have upper and lower elementary school cohorts for kids 4-6, and 7-10 years old. If you think your child is on the border…
Nitzanim Unit 4 Showcase: Holy Moments
The Nitzanim (3rd and 4th graders) presented their fourth and final showcase for the year! This unit’s big idea was holy moments, viewed through the text of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). We focused on creating a Pinat Shalom (peace corner) for the Nitzanim classroom. We noticed that we needed a space to rest and relax, and a space to be in if…
Adventures with the Shabbackpack
In pre-pandemic times, we welcomed Shabbat in what felt like the most natural way. Families would come together every Friday afternoon. We would sing songs, reflect on our week, and bring in Shabbat together. Importantly, this gave families the opportunity to truly connect with one another. Not just as parents of kids in the same class, but as valued members…
A Time for Learning, and a Time for Reviewing
Wow! The end of Unit 4 already! We can hardly believe how quickly this school year is rushing to a close. Last week we reviewed everything we learned from chapter 3 of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) and the associated commentaries. Here’s what each kvutzah (group) did to recap. Garanim The Garinim (preK and K kiddos) had so much fun reviewing and recapping…
Makom @ Home Makes Meaning of Time
Throughout Judaism, we have many traditions that bring markers to the points throughout our year. The seasons of the year are marked by holidays and festivals, the months are marked by each Rosh Hodesh or new month, and the moments of our day are broken down to morning and evening through times of day we have the opportunity to pray….
Taking a Holy Break with Shabbat
Jewish tradition is one that marks holiness in time. One of the clearest examples of this is Shabbat. There are a myriad of ways we could approach and unpack Shabbat. Last week, our text guided us to, first and foremost, look at Shabbat as a way of keeping track of time. What does time feel like? Time feels faster when…
I Am as Important as the Whole World
I am the single most important entity in the universe. Also I am as significant as a speck of dust. Jewish tradition invites us to hold both these ideas about ourselves as simultaneously true. How can we manage that? And why would we want to? Two weeks ago, the text of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) invited us to wonder whether people were…
A Rosh Pinah Showcase to Remember
How good it is when we come together. What greater joy is there to mark a new point in this strange year than with a moment where we can come together in person for some learning? It brings a smile to every one of our cohort’s faces when they get to share what they’ve learned and created with others. …
Summer Camp Here We Come! June 14-25 & August 9-27
We hope you are getting ready for a fabulous summer! We’re gearing up for 5 awesome weeks of School’s Out Camp with your kiddos, two weeks in June and 3 weeks in August. Join us to write a play, create , and party! See more details below, or click here to enroll by the week. Our summer camps are weekly. …
On the Nature of People
What even are people? Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) argues that Earthlings should stop trying to associate themselves with God and just realize that they’re only as good as animals. Both end up the same: coming from dust and returning to dust (Kohelet 3:18-20). What do you think happens after people and animals die? Nothing. We become dirt and then plants. We will…
Leadership under scrutiny: When we make mistakes.
What is the difference between someone is chosen for a role or when they take on the role themselves? We are working to understand leadership. When it comes to Beha’alotcha , our current parsha, we have ample opportunities to do so. Leadership makes mistakes, changes, and shows emotions in this parsha. Those emotions get in the way of idealized…
Who Controls Meaningful Moments?
The section of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) that we explored last week gave us a lot to unpack. The text makes a few big claims: 1. The stuff people earn as doers doesn’t have any value; the only things that are worthwhile are enjoying ourselves and doing good. 2. People have a vague idea of what “forever” means, but can’t actually grasp…
Seasons for a Reason!
What opportunities does having students on the east coast and west coast offer for our observation of and appreciation for nature? The nature around us is always changing with the seasons from Philly to California. With it, our experiences as a class have changed- the days have gotten shorter and longer, our class traditions have been created- from Shalom Chaverim…
Transitioning Between Holy Moments
“Every time and every thing has a season and a moment set for it under the sun” (Kohelet 3:1). Chapter 3 of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) opens with a well-known list of opposites – being born and dying, sewing and tearing, killing and healing etc. The Nitzanim (3rd and 4th graders) brainstormed a list of opposite times in our own lives. Like…