Keeping Connected with our Ed Director
May is a Month of Milestones
May 2021 Keeping Connected
It is May and what a beautiful time of the year. The grass is green. The flowers are in colorful bloom. I wake each morning to the songs of the birds. My resident groundhog (aptly named Phil) makes many appearances a day. Wildlife is everywhere. It is hard to not just sit and stare as nature takes its course during this time of the year! As I look at the calendar for May, I realize that there will not be a lot of time for sitting and staring as we all begin the end of the school year, with lots of milestones for so many students in our community. I really encourage you all to tune in to as many of the events and programs that you are able to as we finish up the school year this month.
In a beautiful cycle of Jewish life, we have the 3rd graders leading the Friday night Shabbat and celebrating the wonderful accomplishment of having completed their first year of Hebrew with their Siyyum Ha’Sefer celebration, followed the very next week by Confirmation Shabbat, in which a dedicated and spirited group of our 10th graders will stand before the congregation and confirm their connection to Judaism. Two weeks after that will be the Graduation Shabbat in which our 12th grader gets to celebrate his Congregation Shalom journey before heading out to more adventures and experiences. In between all of these celebrations, we will mark the end of the school year for everyone, as students complete this year and begin to look forward to being a grade older next year!More
Things I Use to Know Nothing About
April 2021 Keeping Connected
Hello School Community Friends,
On my desk sits a sticky note titled “Things I Use to Know Nothing About.” I started this list when I took on this job almost two years ago. At first, the list was my own way of dealing with the feeling of being thrown into an unknown situation of helping to run the school in the interim and learning things that were new to me, such as how to send a note out through Constant Contact and how to use a Mac computer! As we all know, that first year took a very unexpected turn and my list of “Things I Use to Know Nothing About” grew exponentially. Things such as “video conferencing” and “scanning” were quickly added to the list. It’s a good thing that I love sticky notes because I started to need more than one note to continue listing the new things I had to learn! The list continues to grow, though I have noticed that I have been able to add a few things to the list that are now my choice to learn and not because I have to know those things for this job.
One day recently, I was sitting at my desk, overwhelmed with a very long list of things to do. (I am definitely a list maker.) My eyes fell upon my original list of “Things I Use to Know Nothing About” and it got me thinking. What would a similarly titled list look like for the students in our school? More
Hebrew at Home!
March 2021 Keeping Connected
Hello School Community Friends,
Let’s talk about … Hebrew! (No! Don’t stop reading. It is going to be okay.)
Under the circumstances, the Hebrew program at Congregation Shalom is finding great success this year. The K-2 class is exposed to the Hebrew letters on Sunday mornings and they look forward to singing the AlephBet song while identifying some of the Hebrew letters. Kitah Aleph (3rd grade) and Kitah Bet (4th grade) meet on Sunday mornings following their religious school class. Kitah Aleph is moving right along and the students in the class are learning letters and sounds and words quickly. They are all strong in their Hebrew development and continue to amaze us each week. Kitah Bet has begun the mitkadem program as a whole class, with the goal to start to work a little more independently and progress individually. They are an enthusiastic group and are displaying lots of Hebrew knowledge. Kitah Gimel and Kitah Dalet meet on Wednesday afternoons, always online, and work in small groups with a teacher. The students listen to each other read, try to chant together, explore the meaning and significance of the prayers and blessings and work to learn the vocabulary words. This part of this year has taught us all a lot about how each student learns Hebrew and there are components of the program this year that we will carry into next year, when we are hopefully back in the building. The Gimel and Dalet students work really hard each week, chanting and reading with their peers and teacher. I am so proud of all the Hebrew students and teachers.More
Purim and Community and Zoom, oh my!
February 2021 Keeping Connected
Hello School Community Friends,
The transition to being fully remote for a period of time seems to have gone smoothly. Thank you to everybody for your continued support, patience and flexibility.
Our goal is to always create engaging, interactive and informative class sessions. This seems like an appropriate time of the year to remind everyone of best practices for attending remote classes. Please review these expectations with your students to help all of us continue to provide the best Jewish education possible given the circumstances.
- Come to class prepared with textbooks, Hebrew papers, paper, pencil and any other supplies that a teacher might request for a certain week.
- Come to class sitting up right, in a position that shows kavod and the willingness to learn in class.
- Turn on your video screen. It is much more engaging for the teacher and all the students to be able to see everyone and make connections.
- Turn on your audio so that participation in class is able to occur. Make sure that your student is sitting close enough so that they can be heard.
- Clear your work space for class so that there are no temptations to participate in other activities. Put your phone away. Please do not play other games on the computer (or on any device) while in class.
- Respect the use of the Chat room and other Zoom functions.
If you know of another suggestion that will help to create conducive and engaging learning environments, please let me know.More
Welcoming the New Calendar Year with Kindness
January 2021 Keeping Connected
As we begin a new calendar year, I have been taking time to reflect on the first half of the school year. As we all know, it has been a school year like no other, filled with challenges, changes, uncertainty and the need for lots of flexibility. I feel great pride for how our students, families, teachers and larger community have met these challenges with great success. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the difficult aspects of the world we are living in that I think we don’t always see the goodness that is also all around us. I have made a concerted effort during this past month to observe and acknowledge these good things. There have been so many but I will share a few (18) here with you in no particular order.
- Our school community and larger temple community pulled together with great generosity and caring with donations made to cover the cost of a Christmas meal for our friends living in Senior Housing in Chelmsford. I was touched and rendered speechless by the outpouring of support for this meal.
- A 7th grader took the initiative to organize the 7th grade class to take a night to light the new BIG Hanukkah menorah.
- A temple family was in the drive-thru lane at Dunkin Donuts. The car in front of them paid for their food. The next time they were in the drive – thru, one of our young students reminded her mother of this, and she and her family paid for the car behind them.
Your Questions Answered
October 2020 Keeping Connected
Religious School and Hebrew School are well underway, having had a successful start to the year. As you know, this year has brought us many challenges that are new to all of us. The teachers and I are continually reflecting on the classes and making changes and accommodations as needed. As always, our goal is to create a fun and engaging learning environment that supports the mission of working towards a lifelong love of learning about Judaism. Thank you to everyone for your patience, flexibility and support as we continue our journey into unchartered territory.
Questions that have come up (or questions you may be thinking about):
How will I know if class is inside or outside on Sunday mornings? – Every Sunday a note will be sent out at 7am that communicates the plans for the morning. In addition, the note includes the links into the classes for the morning. (The links are the same every week, unless you hear differently from a teacher.) As a general rule, if the temperature is going to be below 50 degrees by 9am on class day, classes will be held inside.
Will I get a reminder each week for my Wednesday Hebrew student’s time of class? – No, you will not be receiving weekly reminders. (If you think you need one, please let me know.) As of now, until you hear directly from me or a teacher, the times for the Wednesday sessions will be remaining the same each week. Please mark your calendars so that your students do not miss this important learning time with their teachers and classmates. (The links for these meetings are also the same each week.)More