Rosh Hashanah Craft

We made Simanim serving trays for Rosh Hashanah. Here is what the Students produced:

Memory Challenge

Today, I questioned the Student's abilities to multitask while playing on their iPad/IPhone. One student related that they can multitask, no problem, when using technology. I challenged them to a memory task of the "Camping Trip" game to see if they can remember items in order while using their devices. In the end Shira and Emuna tied for first place, but everyone did pretty good. Here is the list of all the items those two memorized. I was impressed.

I am going on a camping trip and I am bringing my:

Walking Stick

IPad

Glasses

S'mores

Siddur

Watermelon

Flashlight

Stinky Cheese

House

Lip Gloss

Colouring Sheets

Doughnuts

Sun Screen

Dog

Worlds Biggest Ear Wax Collection

Hot Dog

Watch

Water Bottle

Poster

Chips

Hat

Ball 

Sweat Shirt

Tikkun Olam Project

Here are some beautiful pictures from our recent Daffodil Planting excursion. We took part in the planting of 600 daffodils in remembrance of the 1.5 million children who were sadly killed in the Holocaust. We were very proud to be a part of this project and hope to see them blossoming in the spring.

APPLE PICKING TRIP

Words are useless when the pictures tell the story so well!

Teshuvah, Tefillah U'Tzedaka

Today at the CLC Homeschool we spoke about three new BIG Rosh Hashanah themes: Teshuvah, Tefillah and Tzedaka.

First, we spoke about what we already knew about these three topics.
Second, we got into groups of two and took letters of the Aleph-Bet to spell out one of the words.

Third, we took random Lego pieces and created our own vision of what our word meant. Unfortunately the Students broke theirs apart before Rabbi B had a chance to take a picture. The group who worked on Teshuvah made a shul, complete with aron kodesh, benches and mechitza. Their vision was that Teshuvah was a communal process that is done as a community. The seats were long rows where each group sat together to work on their past and towards their future.
The Tefillah group had a similar vision of a shul where there was a ramp going up signifying the process of davening as slow and steady. As well, there was a balancing long Lego piece signifying the balance we all must to when praying to not think about mundane matters. There was also a piece that had an eye on it signifying that H" is always watching us and we should "Da Lifnei Mi Atah Omed" - know before Who we stand.
The Tzedaka group made a tzedaka box that reached towards the heaven, signifying the holy act of giving money to people less fortunate.

Lastly we looked in the machzor to see where these themes, and previously discussed themes like shofar, din (judgement), malchiyot (kingship) and zichronot (remembrances), came up.

SEFER HAMITZVOS AND SCIENCE

In the afternoon group, we have been discussing Solar science and Light science.
We learned how light can be either reflected, refracted or absorbed. In the refraction discussion, I told the Students that natural visible sunlight was called white light and that this white light contained all the visible spectrum of colours (ROYGBIV). The Students were not sold. They retorted with a good source that when we colour all the colours together on a paper it turns black, not white. I agreed that this was how ink colours work, but light behaves differently, so we experimented.

I hope to bring a prism in to show them a real rainbow of colours as white light is refracted, but for now we did it with a paper experiment. We split a circle of paper into eight segments and coloured each segment a different colour of the rainbow spectrum. Then we mounted them on cardboard and spun them around very fast to see how the colours would mix when our eyes tried to follow the wheel.

Our first experiment was with dark marker colours.

As you can see, the colours were too dark and we kept getting a yellow, or in one case purple, wheel. 

Next we tried pencil crayons. We figured the colours of a rainbow were not that dark, and more lighter colours. 

The result of our next trial was much better: a white wheel. The colours mixed together and made white, proving that white light really can contain all the colours and still be white. 

In addition: One Student made a wonderful connection to the behaviours of light and us, the Jewish people. Just like light can be Reflected and Absorbed, so too can Torah work the same way. As we know, Torah is called Ohr (Light) and this too is the name of the Alter Rebbe's sefer: Torah Ohr. We, as Jews, can absorb the teachings of the Torah to give us more knowledge and change our kiddos for the better. As well, we can reflect the light of the Torah outward to the world making kiddushei Hashem, performing mitzvos and doing mivtzoim. These are just some of the reasons we feel Torah is called light. 

TOMORROW MORNING: SHOFAR DEMONSTRATION

Why an Apple on Rosh Hashanah?

Our grade 7 girls discovered where the custom of eating Apples on Rosh Hashanah came from. To illustrate what they learned, they created an info-graphic:

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Information Source: MorashaSyllabus.com and Chabad.org

HALACHIC HAPPENINGS - Shulchan Aruch Chapter: 583 - Things Which We are Accustomed to Eat on Rosh Hashanah

Today, in the Clanton Park class, we began thinking and talking about Rosh Hashanah. But before we got too into the subject we wanted to understand the organization of the Hebrew Calendar.

I provided an overview of the Hebrew calendar from Joseph Telushkin's book Jewish Literacy which gives a basic look into all facets of Jewish life. I broke the Students into learning chavrutot (partners) so they could cover the information together.

We then came back together as a group and discussed what we had just read. Mostly, the idea of the Hebrew calendar being 11 days shorter than the Solar/Gregorian calendar was of interest. We calculated that over three years we would be more than a month behind, and eventually Pesach would fall in the winter, which we found in the article that this was a Halachic problem because Pesach needs to be in the spring. One Student remarked, "Oh, of course, it's Chag HaAviv!"

I then showed the Students how we base the calendar on the phases of the moon, thus it is a Lunar calendar. I shows how the New moon is when the sun shines on the side we don't see, the waxing quarter moon is when the sun shines on half the moon we see, the whole moon is when we facd the sunlit side completely and the waning quarter moon is when the sun lights up half the side we can see.
They understood the moon's motion around the earth but to give more clarity I hope to demonstrate this again using flashlights and balls. It's quite effective.

Once we established how Rosh Chodesh is decided, we looked at the first month of the year - Tishrei. (Soon I will teach them how Nissan is the first month of the months, but for now we will use Tishrei).
We also saw how Rosh Hashanah is the Rosh Chodesh of Tishrei.

The lesson ended there and we moved into more specifics, laws that pertain to Rosh Hashanah. I handed out copies of the Shulcha Aruch HaRav, chapter 583 which discusses the various customs of food we should eat on Rosh Hashanah. I found this not only important as a custom, but something tangible, experiential and fun, hey, it's the first day!

We learned as a group the first couple of laws, this learning brought out a discussion about Brachot (blessings) more specifically the order of blessings and if courses like dessert or appetizers were covered by the Hamotzi blessing of a meal. It seemed from the laws we had before us, and our previous knowledge that foods which are not part of the general meal are actually NOT covered by the Hamotzi and require their own blessing. Thus, on Rosh Hashanah, we must make separate brachot on any new fruits or apples dipped in honey we eat during the RH meal. One Student inquired, "do we need to say a brachah on the honey?" another Student added, "yeah, if we are eating it as a special food, we should make a brachah on it?" I did not know if honey requires a brachah, so i challenged them to find out:

QUESTION OF THE DAY: DOES HONEY REQUIRE ITS OWN BRACHAH WHEN WE EAT IT WITH ANOTHER FOOD, LIKE AN APPLE?

Another point we learned from Halachot was that when we eat special food on Rosh Hashanah we are to make a special YEHI RATZON on it. This tefillah should be said after make the brachah on the food and after we eat a little bit from it because we do not want to make a Hefsek (interruption) between the blessing and the eating.

We learned that we eat Pomegranates because they are filled with seeds like we should be filled with Mitzvot. Then, one of the Students stumbled upon today's activity by asking: DO POMEGRANATES REALLY HAVE 613 SEEDS, LIKE THE NUMBER OF MITZVOT IN THE TORAH?

So we found out in a small experiment I called, JEWISH MYTHBUSTERS
The question was: Do Pomegranates have 613 seeds?
For our Hypothesis: One Student said Yes, one Student said No, one Student said Maybe and the fourth Student said Ish (which I think means Maybe). Rabbi B said Yes.

We used a scientific method called counting to find out.
Each Student received a medium sized Pomegranate, Rabbi B also received a Pomegranate.
Thus we used 5 Pomegranates in total.

Here are the results:
POM:    NUM OF SEEDS:
  A                718
  B                724
  C                712
  D                664
  E                525
Average Number of Seeds: 668.6

So, the Myth was Busted!

But we learned that Pomegranates are so full of seeds there is no room for anything else, so too our days should be so filled with good deeds that we don't have time for anything not good.

We also learned never to wear white when counting Pomegranate seeds.

Science and Sefer HaMitzvos: MItzvah 27, 28 & 29 - Not Serving Avodah Zarah (Idols)

Todays lesson goal was to make the concept of Not Serving Idols  relevant and understandable in our day and age. I figures the students had never seen real idols, or people serving them for that matter, and I could not help but wonder what they thought about it. So I asked.

1. Ask the Students what serving Idols means to them.

Once our ideas were out in the open we opened to page 147 in our Yahadus text books and began to read a little.

2. Read introduction and actual Mitzvah bubbles in Yahadus textbooks. 

I then discussed with them the multiple laws and concerns the Torah has with us serving idols.

After this short discussion, I brought in a Primary Source (the Rebbe's Maamar Byom Ashtei Asar Yom)  to discuss the history and dissemination of idol worship in the world. 

One topic i found we were drawn to was KeGazron Byad HaChotzev (Like an axe in the hands of a lumberjack). We discussed other mashalim (examples) of where a tool may look like its doing the job but really its the one who yields it. 

3. Look inside the text for ideas and words relating to idolatry and get the Students to understand the process the nations went through until they reached full idol worship.

4. I asked the students: What about Shittuf (The concept of a partnership between Hashem and the constellations/stars)? Is it good, bad, horrible?

The we looked back into the Yahadus text to find out what the Rambam, and others, say about his belief. 

I felt the lesson was maximally received for today and took our discussion to a scientific tangent. 

I asked: What is the SUN?

5. We made a thinking-web showcasing all we knew about the sun.  

I brought out resources, like the books pictured below for the Students to read and look into what the sun actually is. 

It was a beautifully sunny day today, so we went to the source, the SUN. I used binoculars to observe the Sun. What you do is
        1. Cover up one lens
        2. Face the wide lens towards the Sun and thin lens toward a clean white sheet of paper
        3. You should see a round white circle appear, that is the Sun!

Another way to observe the sun is with special SUN-Glasses. You can purchase these at a science store like Efson Science on Dufferin. 

I explained what the sun was made of, what it did and how it works. All this information i got from these resource books that I gave to the Students. 

We discussed how the suns heat felt, and other concepts. 

I then told them about Solar Power and how the Rebbe, amongst others, was a proponent for the use of Solar Power. 

To illustrate this, and to make this concept experiential and lasting, we made Pizza Box Solar Ovens. 

I used the following youtube video and allowed the Students to build it on their own, under my supervision. I did not do this for them!

YOUTUBE - PIZZA BOX OVEN

I had brought in all the supplies ahead of time, and I even brought three slices of cold pizza for us to warm up for a snack. 

Hey, education need not be a hungry endeavour. 

Happy learning.