September 19, 2008 Elul 19, 5768 Dear Parents, Week #3 and we continue to grow and succeed. With Selichot upon us, the ìExcuse Meî holiday, our students are focusing on ways to improve. From learning how to sit calmly and follow classroom procedures, to learning how ìto focusî as we do for the Shema, when everyone looks to truly concentrate, students are discussing how they can positively engage and begin to take responsibility. Hefty goals for young responsible students. Doable goals as they are motivated and have built in support systems within each other as they are already are a cohesive group! Indeed, it is not uncommon to see one older student helping a younger one and reminding them that that is what she said she wanted to learn and or improve at. Besides sharing Selichot sentiments and learning about poetry * that is found in that liturgy, our students have begun to learn some of the High Holiday Liturgy. This is in preparation for Rosh HaShannah as our Selichot liturgy begins to tackle common refrains. Additionally, our students wrote copiously this week as they prepared Rosh HaShannah brachot/blessings ‚ cards for their grandparents. Hopefully, their letters will arrive in a timely fashion. Language Arts lessons centered around reading and studying the seasons! The story, Four Seasons Make a Year by Anne Rockwell, lent itself to learning the names of the month, graphing, taking the daily temperature and dividing the year into fractional parts ‚seasons. Science lessons, in which students learned that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun, connected nicely with the LA sessions and further extended geographic understanding as students began to hear about the seven different continents and their location upon northern and southern hemisphere. They also spoke about the shape of the globe which led into a discussion about shapes. Periods, question marks and commas punctuated these lessons as students wrote answers, wrote in their journals and wrote letters. They also used proper capitalization and checked to make certain that they were writing sentences ‚ complete thoughts. In math counting, one to one correspondence, and word problems prompted our young readers to think carefully. In looking toward our upcoming events, know that we are looking to do taschlich at the Lake Wingra. Todah rabbah goes to Rabbi Ben Gideon for visiting our class for morning tefilah last Tuesday. Rabbi Ben Gideon was kind enough to bring in a ram shofar and blow the appropriate sounds. It truly woke us up and taught us that we must daily seek to improve ‚líheshtapar. Our thanks extend as well to Esther Poler for hemming the wedding gowns that we received from Madison Theatre Guild on Monroe Street. Our thanks are for the Madison Theatre Guild as well! The wonderful ladies heading the Custom Department are working with us to coordinate a field trip there as well as send a young aspiring actor to us to perform for our class. Attached you will find an application for your child for the Madison Public Library. Please fill in the application and bring it to school so that we can take the applications with us when we go to the Library during October. If your child already has a card please send it in. Thank you. Temple Beth El kindly requests that when we park and/or drop off and/or pick up a child we travel around the building. This helps prevent accidents and is the correct direction of the flow of traffic. Thank you for your help in this matter. Our condolences are given to the Ablove Family on the loss of Annaís great grandmother, Dr. Tova Abloveís maternal grandmother. May she be remembered for all her good work and may the family soon find comfort. Remember, do feel free to contact us if you need to and until next timeÖ have a sweet Shabbat. Kol tuv, Meisha and Jodi *From a Selichot piece of poetry that attests that HaShem is the Potter and we but the clay, the students formulated their own relationships. Here are a few: We are the clouds and You are the sky. (Chaya Necha) You are the sun and we are the stars. (Anna) You are the calendar and we are the dates. (Vered) You are the tree and we are the leaves. (Lena) You are the chalk and we are the chalkboard. (Ilana) You are the moon and we are the craters. (Maya)