Te’enah students have been busy learning about the connection between the holiday of Passover and the mitzvah of Hachnassat Orchim. This week, the children learned about the how the State of Israel welcomed almost the entire Ethiopian Jewish community, airlifting them out of Ethiopia and transporting them to Israel in less than 36 hours back in 1991. Te’enah students listened to the book Yuvi’s Candy Tree by Lesley Simpson about a little Ethiopian girl named Yuvi, who traveled to Israel during Operation Solomon. The children simulated Israel’s amazing evacuation of 15,000 Ethiopian Jews by carefully transporting approximately 15,000 grains of rice from one spot in the room to another on plastic bucket “airplane” with Te’enah “pilots.” Actually seeing the huge pile of rice made the number more concrete for the students and helped emphasize what a miraculous accomplishment the airlift really signified.
At the beginning of the week, we had a wonderful and very instructive trip to the Chabad Matzah Factory. The children learned about the entire process of making matzah. First they watched a video about how the wheat is grown and harvested. Then they were able to hold an individual stock of wheat, separate off the grains, grind the grains and make the matzah. We now know that in order for it to be Kosher for Passover, matzah has to be made in 18 minutes or less.
In math this week, the children have been learning to tell time to the hour and half-hour. The highlight was a telling time bingo game with Hamorah Alli.
Children germinated bean seeds and planted them this week. We are experimenting with a few different bean plants. We are wondering if one of our bean plants will grow without sun? without soil? Time will tell…
Te’enah writers continue to work on poetry. Next week the children will be choosing some of their poems to publish.
Shabbat Shalom,
Hamorah Joanne