Tefillah And Hamorah Eliza's Math Class

Dear Friends of Gefen and Tamar,

It was a pleasure to see so many of you on Monday to discuss your children and the bright, inquisitive, independent students they are becoming. If you did not come in Monday and you would like to, it's not too late! Please feel free to email me (or any teacher you would like to meet with, for that matter) so we can set up an appointment.

What a week! I will start off with pictures from this morning's All-School Tefillah because, well, who doesn't love to see their children looking happy and engaged, and in leadership roles?

Gefen leads Ashrei.

Tamar leads Yishtabach

Last year we did All-School Tefillah once a month. This year we do it each Friday morning. It's been a really nice and community-building addition to the structure of our school week. I think the children enjoy it too. Not all All-School Tefillot are the same, though. For example, last week the older grades (3-7) did a meditation Tefillah led by Rav-Hazzan. If you visited our blog last week, you may have noticed that many of the students wrote about the experience. It was definitely a hit among the kids. Ask your child to tell you more about it!

This week we had a pretty traditional service. However, at the end we had a short discussion with the older grades about the difference between praying with ruach (spirit) and getting silly. There can be a fine line between the two and we wanted the students to take time to think about the differences. Is it okay to tap your knee or your siddur with the beat of the prayer? Is that disrespectful? Are hand motions okay? Is it okay to do these things only if you are singing along too? These are not simple questions and they don't have cut-and-dry answers. I urge you to discuss the answers we came up with today with your children at home.

As you know, Gefen and Tamar students are divided among four Math classes based on their learning styles and other factors. All the Math classes are doing cool, innovative things. I hear about Mr. Merlyn's playground design project and Hamorah Michelle's dream house design project from students frequently. I know they love it. In my Math class this week we started a Probability and Statistics unit. We measured the heights of every student in our class and then talked about the RANGE of heights and then we identified some OUTLIERS. If your student is in my Math class, ask him or her what these Math terms mean. It might be fun to try to identify ranges and outliers in various data sets you and your children come across in your daily life. Two easy places to do this are the supermarket or drugstore. Compare prices of various brands of face cream or shampoo, for example. Which brands are the outliers? What is a typical price for a given product?

That's all from ME for now. But please take a moment to scroll through the wonderful, original posts your children are writing. Please note that, for the most part, this work is all unedited. Hamorah Janis and I oversee the children's writing (ie make sure the content is appropriate, etc., but we do not "fix" grammar and punctuation errors). Actually, one of the ways we work on grammar and punctuation with the students is by weeding through these posts later in the year (once enough work has accumulated). The students then edit and expand on their own published writing. It is a cool, "real life" way for them to improve their writing skills.

Best,
Hamorah Eliza