February 2012 Updates: Jewish Studies: Celebrating Tu Bi’Shvat and Purim And starting the BJE course

Tu Bi’Shvat arrived and we celebrated with the Kishkashta group, now headed by Eyal and Libat (pictured on the left, reading the book “Auntie Tova’s hat”, which is a silly book about a lady that grows various trees in her hat from seeds). Barak and Alma chatted with our friends Hamutal, Yaron and Natan while Ben and Hahgoot participated in the story time activity.

Galit is not leading Kishkashta any longer, but she is still an enthusiastic participant, singing and dancing.

Next Eyal distributed plants in pots and the kids decorated the pots, using stickers with pictures of places in Israel (Hahgoot was thrilled to find the dead sea and Tel-Aviv!)

After the fun session we went out to dinner at the nearby shopping centre at Bondi Junction to eat an early dinner with the Rotem\Mazrier family. Here you can see Hahgoot, Ben and Alma enjoying window shopping (Alma liked the colourful shoes).

Hahgoot continued studying about Tu Bi’shvat at home: she selected pictures and decorated a basket she made from a shoe box to use for the fruit on the kitchen bench, and also drew imaginary trees from unusual seeds...

We read stories in “Pilon” magazine about trees and planting, and looked at imaginary trees for inspiration. Hahgoot matched flowers to their shadows (and learned names of Israeli flowers) and also tried to write a short story following the centrefold but didn’t get very far (she has a confidence issue concerning reading and writing in Hebrew, which affects her motivation).

Hahgoot used some of the Tal- Am books from “Massada”, but they were too easy, and very repetitive.

Hahgoot was VERY enthusiastic to start the BJE program, which begun with an introductory unit about herself, the yearly cycle of the months and holidays and the idea of prayer.

She enjoyed the weekly “Parasha” (segment from the Torah, that was read that week at synagogue), which was “The 12 spies”. We acted the story out with dolls and Hahgoot continued the story later on, detailing the many wars of Joshua against the different peoples occupying the “promised land”.

The next unit was “Purim”. Hahgoot enjoyed the many puzzles and small activities (here she is making queen Esther’s crown dot-to-dot) and also made her own model hamantaschen from a paper plate and crape paper.

The girls danced to Uzi Hitman’s lively Purim songs while dressing up and playing the Ra’ashan. Unfortunately, this year we couldn’t attend the big Kishkashta Purim festival. In our next presentation: More of Hahgoot’s studies, this time: Art!