What can we learn from the relationship between Moshe and God? This is the question that our Anafim (5th-7th grade) students have been mulling over since the beginning of the year. In the texts we have been discussing, Moshe asks God for Their help in leading the Jewish people. He also asks God to show him Their splendor, so that…
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Makom Community News & Blog
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Voting and Living Like Our Children are Watching…Because They are!
Recently, I had the pleasure of presenting to Jewish professionals running family camps all over the United States at a gathering of the Foundation for Jewish Camp. I pushed them on what it means to teach. We were working to expand our understanding of teaching to refer not just to the explicit teaching of knowledge, but the way that we…
Makom Making: A Communal Practice
If you have read my previous blog post, you know that Makom Community fills a special place in my heart. My childhood lacked a community like that which Makom provides. I see the way our kiddos interact with their grownups, their educators, the world at large, and I can’t help but stand in awe. It is such an honor to…
Garinim: Budding Community
Welcome back to Jewish Enrichment! We’re so thrilled to be back learning and playing every afternoon with your wise and wonderful kiddos. These first two weeks of the year were chock full of ice breaker games, welcoming back old friends, forming new connections, and settling back into the routines of Jewish Enrichment. Here are some highlights from our youngest learners,…
Opportunities for a Mindful Rosh Hashanah
A new year can elicit a lot of feelings. Our children are getting older. Our parents and loved ones are getting older. We are still navigating living through a pandemic in our own ways. Fortunately, the rhythms of the Jewish calendar invite us into this season to reflect, renew, and encounter the new. I want to offer a few opportunities…
Makom – A Great Place to Be
Mah tovu ohalekha Ya’akov, mishk’notekha Yisrael! How great are your tents, Yaakov, the places where you live, Yisrael! We began our year exploring what makes Makom Community a great place to be! During our first week of Jewish Enrichment, we welcomed over 80 students from Pre K through 7th grade to Makom Community in both our Center City and South…
Jewish Placemaking Conference Reflection
What a joy to be back in the virtual room for our 3rd annual Jewish Placemaking Conference! We had 60 directors and educators from across the country register to join us for three packed afternoons of learning and reflecting together. After brief introductions to Makom Community and the conference facilitation staff, Beverly, Gaby, Terri, and Sara, we jumped right into…
New Employee at Makom Community
From the first time I read about Makom Community in an email from my sister, I knew it was a special place. Never before have I seen so many pedagogical practices that I resonate with used in one place. As an educator, I have grown attached to this idea of global citizenship, and I’ve come to view it as the…
Top 10 Highlights from 2021-22
We wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on some of our favorite moments from this year with all of you! Which one is your favorite? 10. Makom @ Home A 3rd grader in Makom @ Home who usually insists that she hates singing and turns her camera off during Tefilah (prayers), got very excited when we brought in some…
Empathizing with Yocheved and Moshe
Makom @ Home kiddos have been writing their own commentary on the Exodus story as we read about how Bnei Yisrael (the Jewish people, originally the children of Yaakov AKA Yisrael) were enslaved in Mitzrayim (Egypt). In the early weeks of the story, one of our learners requested artsploration in addition to textsploration, so we introduced many of our texts…
Walking With God and Finding Sanctuary
Our learners have been busy exploring the story of Noach and playing with ideas of sanctuary, lawlessness, animal communication with God, and much more! Garinim (kindergarteners) wondered about the Noach story: Why does the text say that people are nothing but evil? I don’t think that’s the way people are now. It’s really sad that Noach’s family is the only…
Communication for Success
Ever had a tough moment with a student and worried about whether or how to loop in their parents? But now think about all the fabulous moments you’ve had with students. Have you told parents about those moments either? In March, the Jewish Placemaking Accelerator participants took a hard look at parent communication – why it’s important, how to do…
Center City & South Philly’s Unit 3 Nitzanim Showcase
How might we connect the history of the Jewish People to who we are and hope to be within Jewish communities? Nitzanim (3rd – 5th grade) learners in both South Philly and Center City spent our third unit of this year working to answer this question. Through study of the Yetziyat Mitzrayim (Leaving Egypt) text and child-driven research, each learner…
Earth Week School’s Out Camp
Makom Community’s Spring Break Campers had an energetic, creative, and collaborative week at Spring Break Camp: “Earth Week”! Our week was full of nature-inspired crafts, scavenger hunts, and building, all with a Jewish twist. We started the week with things that grow, like flowers, trees and other plants. We broke the ice…
The Process of Creating Culture
What do we want people to associate with when they think of our schools? How do we want them to feel when they leave the building? In February, the Jewish Placemaking Accelerator participants took the starting steps toward wrangling with the current culture at their respective institutions and imagining and planning for what it could be. What five words describe…
Plagues vs. The Environment
SO. MANY. PLAGUES. This week, our learners explored more plagues: frogs (tzefarde’a), lice (kinim), wild beasts (arov), cattle disease (dever), boils (shechin), and fiery hail (barad). The Garinim (kindergartners) unpacked plagues 2-7 as we moved towards the climax of the Yetziat Mitzrayim (leaving Egypt) story. We’ve particularly enjoyed making a hands-on physical portrayal of the cumulative effects of each plague…
Uncovering Big Feelings in Megillat Esther & Yetziyat Mitzrayim
IT’S PURIM – one of our (or at least Gaby’s) favorite times of the year at Makom Community! The Garinim (kindergartners) spent the week leading up to our Purim spiel (play) and megillah reading celebration familiarizing ourselves with the story, making silly masks, illustrating the holidays four mitzvot (commandments), and generally having a giggly time. We examined the whole story…
Torah Service, Tallit Making, and Farewell!
The Torah service last week Thursday was a huge success! Yasher koach to all of our learners for reading from the Torah. And thank you parents for joining us! This was our second Torah service. Everyone was pretty relaxed and ready going into it, since this was our second time doing the complete Torah service with Torah reading this year….
The First Plague and God’s Power
This week, learners delved into text and examined Pharaoh’s reaction to Moshe and Aharon’s request for Bnei Yisrael to retreat to the wilderness to worship God. We also considered Bnei Yisrael’s resentment towards Moshe and Aharon for their attempts to free them. Learners also explored the demonstration of God’s power as the first plague turns the Nile into blood, causing…
COVID Policy Update March 2022
Dear Makom Community Families, First of all, thank you so much for all the ways you have supported each other and all our kids through the pandemic. I am thrilled to share that our educators are 100% vaccinated and boosted, and our learners are 100% vaccinated since early January. In light of those incredible rates of vaccination, current COVID numbers,…
Jewish Placemaking in Every Class
Whether we like it or not, COVID has forced educators to think outside the traditional classroom to bring students together for community building and learning. And it’s been hard work! We opened our January Jewish Placemaking Accelerator Seminar by asking participants to brainstorm some of the challenges and opportunities presented by a variety of learning spaces: indoors, outdoors, shared, and…
South Philly’s Praiseworthy Photography Project
During our second unit, Holy Me, learners explored the light around us, and it can help us grow the light and holiness inside ourselves. We further investigated this concept with a photography project, learners were introduced to a disposable film camera and took portraits of subjects in our neighborhood they deemed praiseworthy. Many of the kiddos were unfamiliar with film….
Holy Listening and Loving
You may remember the whiteboard check-in that one of our kiddos invented a few weeks ago. It was not just a one-time thing! Other kids have brought it back and it’s now part of our regular pool of check-in options. Here is this week’s: I’m so glad we are building a community in Makom @ Home where we feel safe…
God Hears Bnei Yisrael’s Cries
We have had ENOUGH! Last week, we read the bit of our story where Bnei Yisrael (the Jewish people) can’t handle the burden of slavery any more and cry out to God all at once. God hears them and decides to finally help (Exodus 2:23-25). Garinim (kindergarteners) had some thoughts…… What are some different ways people ask for help? Asking…
Along The Nile….
This week, we continued the Exodus story and tried to empathize with our main characters, Moshe, Yocheved (Moshe’s birth mother), Miriam (Moshe’s biological sister), Batya (Pharaoh daughter and Moshe’s adoptive mother), and Pharaoh. Garinim (kindergartners) love this story. Everyday, when we pause the narrative, they shout and want to hear more! Here’s some of what we unpacked last week. There…
What Is A Leader? President’s Day Camp
We had an energizing and imaginative day on Monday at President’s Day School’s Out Camp! Our focus was leadership and community care. Our creative crew of learners, new and familiar, had so much to say and think about as we learned, built, played, danced and rested together. We began by considering what a President should be like! Learners listed qualities…
Tallit Making and Trope Learning
It’s crafting time in BMitzvah! We are focused on designing and preparing for making our own tallitot in the coming weeks. Everyone has come up with their own really unique, true to themselves ideas for what kind of tallit they want- from size to colors to themes to images. It is a joy to watch their creativity at work, and…
One Crazy Time, In The Land of Egypt……
How did we become the Jewish people? This week, we started a new unit! We read Exodus 1 where we discovered how B’nei Yisrael (Hebrews) ended up in Mitzrayim (Egypt) in the first place! A short gist: A new Pharaoh rose to power that did not know about Yosef and made all of the Ivirm slaves. There were SO many…
Immersing In The Exodus Story
This week we continued our unit three learning exploring the Exodus story! All week I watched students absorb and embody this story through building, play, art, puppetry, dress-up, and more. It was such a joy to observe students immersing themselves in this essential story of the Jewish people, a story they know well already and are eager to expand upon….
How The Holiness Inside Ourselves Contribute To Our Communities ~ A Nitzanim Showcase
Nitzanim worked so hard during our second unit to create an open gallery showcasing their exploration! Learners were particularly inspired by the text that says: Torah Temimah on Ecclesiastes 7:13 “When God created the first human, God took them and showed them all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to them, ‘See my works, how beautiful and…