HSRS Announcements (Hodaahot הוֹדָוֹת) New Information We have some current needs for volunteers as well as to expand our substitute teacher list. Take a look at the SIGN UP GENIUS and see if there are any ways for you to help!
Previous Information Sent! SHUK It's almost time for our second shuk (market) of the year! If you are interested in donating, please take a look at our Amazon Wish List. We are always looking for donations of gently used Squishmallows, board games, and more!
SERVICE ATTENDANCE The next few months is the perfect time for your student to meet their service attendance requirement. As a reminder, Kindergarten and 1st grade students are encouraged to attend 1 service; 2nd grade attends 2 services; 3rd grade attends 3 services and so on. Attending grade level services, zoom services, bar/bat mitzvahs out of town all can count toward this goal.
Calling all siddurim!!! If you currently have a copy of Har Shalom's siddur/prayerbook, that you are not actively needing, please return ASAP. We have many b'nai mitzvahs and grade-level Shabbat services over the next few months that will be needing these copies. Thank you!
TZEDAKAH! Prior to spring break, each class will be designing mitzvah projects. All the money collected through weekly tzedakah contributions will be used for the project. This is a great way to be a mensch and a wonderful habit to form at a young age!
Important Dates & Upcoming Events
February 23- Shabbat Jr at 5:30pm, oneg to follow February 24- 2nd/3rd grade Saturday Morning Shabbat Service February 25- NO SCHOOL FOR 2ND and 3RD GRADES February 25- Beresheet Day 5 at 10:30am March 10-17- NO HSRS for SPRING BREAK March 22- Shabbat Jr at 5:30pm, oneg to follow March 24- Purim celebrated during HSRS, costumes encouraged March 30- 6th Havdalah from 5:30-7:30pm (NOTE THE GRADE CHANGE) March 31- NO SCHOOL FOR 6TH GRADE (NOTE THE GRADE CHANGE) March 31- Beresheet Day 6 at 10:30am
BBYO & Teens Teen of the Week! Lilah is one of our 1st grade madrichim! We are so lucky to have a great support in our first great class. She is a great leader, and the kids love to play games with her, and work on small group hebrew work.
Synagogue & Community News
From Our Teachers
Beresheet (Preschool) Looking forward to Day 5 of creation on February 25!
Kitah Gan (Kindergarten) Sunday from Morah JoJo- Hey everyone! The morning started out with a lot of review and practice. We went over all the previous Hebrew letters we learned, practicing our penmanship and sounds. The kids wrote lines of letters in their books and on the whiteboard, we then took a quick Aleph-Bet yoga break. After we got the wiggles out, we went back to our books to learn new letters, which we will go over again next week. After a quick snack break, we headed back to class for our Chai lesson. This week was all about finding peace in our lives, even when the world around us is going a bit crazy. We talked about Shalom Bayit, Peace at Home. Through making our own mezuzahs, the kids explored being patient, listening and keeping a peaceful home. We learned to use the mezuzah as a reminder that each of us contributes to making our homes peaceful and safe. The Madrichim sang the Shema and each student now has a special blessing inside their mezuzah. We took a quick break to have story time with Judy, this week we listened to a story about Chanukat HaBayit. Further learning about the the importance of our mezuzahs and different rituals they can practice (i.e. where to hang it and different ways to touch it, when walking through your door). We ended with a moment of silence to practice being still and feeling peace. HOMEWORK: If allowed by parents, the mezuzahs can be hung on the kids bedroom door for them to use on a daily basis. I was hoping these would be easy to stick on the door with double sided sticky tape. If this is done, I will give 10 shekels!
Kitah Alef (First Grade) Sunday from Morah Laura- I'm so excited to join the first grade class on Sundays through the end of the year. I enjoyed spending the day with them and can't wait to learn with them this year. I want to introduce myself. My name is Laura Actor and I am a teacher at Zach Elementary in Fort Collins. My family and I have been active members since 2012 and I've previously taught religious school and preschool at Har Shalom. We started our day by revisiting our Brit, which I helped with when I substituted earlier in the year. We then rotated through three centers to review the concepts that have already been taught this year. One center had students matching consonants with their final consonant. The students were able to use the Aleph-Bet chart that we use each week to help them. Another center was an "I have, Who has" game to review the prophets that the students have already learned. The final center was a Hebrew writing center where students traced the letters written in different fonts. The students enjoyed all of them and worked quietly at all of them. The students then enjoyed snack, some fresh air, and then got back to the room for Hebrew letter yoga. We finished our morning with a wonderful story about Adam read to us by Judy Peterson. After cleaning up and checking out books, we played a final game of What is the Hebrew letter in the bag? Students put their hand into a bag and felt the sandpaper letter. They then guessed the letter. I'm looking forward to continue learning the Hebrew Alphabet, Heroes in Judaism and beginning on our mitzvah project. Feel free to contact me anytime by email: Laura.Actor@gmail.com
Kitah Bet (Second Grade) Sunday from Morah Anne- Hi All! This weekend seemed to fly by! We had a great morning at religious school beginning with Shira. We had a read aloud with Safrenit Judy immediately after. She read us a story where we learned about the national bird of Israel, and crafted some Hamas as well. After break we spent some time with the Rabbi discussing our upcoming Kita Bet Shabbat service. We ended the day with a review and quick activity of the 10 Commandments before wrapping up with a quick game. I hope you have a great week and I look forward to seeing everyone on Sunday!
Kitah Gimmel (Third Grade)- Wednesday from Morah Robin- Hello Everyone, We continued working in our Hebrew workbooks on Lesson 10, words and phrases becoming increasingly more challenging. We then had a short break inside playing Hebrew Twister. We then revisited our Chai curriculum, specifically, discussing all the ways we can be Kadosh (Holy). The students were encouraged to write their own definition of Kadoshim (Holiness) in their Chai workbooks. Next we started putting together “My Personal Guide to Holiness: A Bedside Companion” individual booklets. We will continue working on these through the end of the semester.
Sunday from Morah Merav, subbing for Morah Robin- What a pleasure it was to be with Kitah Gimmel! After Shira the Kitah worked on their “My personal Guide to Holiness” packet. They worked with Rabbi and chose the portions of the Shabbat service they would like to lead. The amazing Madrichim (Alexis, Cory and Zia) did a great job of assisting me and also leading the class in games. Everyone loved this. Zia read the class the book “Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors”. We had a great discussion of the book and lots of wonderful shares from the students. The class worked on a fun coloring project with the theme of Joseph’s Coat. We finished class with another game lead by the Madrichim. It was a great day.
Kitah Dalet (Fourth Grade) Wednesday from Morah Merav-We worked in our ‘Time to Read’ workbooks. We paired up and practiced our Hebrew flashcards. Keep an eye out these cards will be coming home in the next couple of weeks.
Wednesday from Morah Sophie- This week we continued working on the 12 tribes! We reviewed each tribe and made the symbols that make up the cover dial. Next week, I will put them together and we will continue making our own tribes!
Pictures from our Kitah Dalet and Kitah Hay Havdalah!
Kitah Hay (Fifth Grade) Wednesday from Morah Lauren- Kitah Hay learned prayers with Teffilah Josh. We practice a lot of new words and they did a very nice job reading sentences for fluency. We also practiced blessings for Havdalah. Hope to see everyone Wednesday.
Kitah Vav (Sixth Grade) Wednesday from Morah Leah- It was so good to be back together after our Saturday Shabbat Service. We continued with our Hebrew lessons and began the next unit in lifecycle - Bar / Bat Mitzvah. We read why there is a minimum age for becoming a Bar / Bat Mitzvah and we talked about what the process is like here at Har Shalom. Sunday from Morah Leah- It was a BUSY day. We rearranged the classroom making room for all of the awesome students we have. After Shira we went straight into Hebrew lessons and then Storytime. After our break we came back for a lesson on Bal Tashchit - the Jewish environmental concern value. Make something from nothing and find ways to have bigger impacts. Of course, please still recycle, ride your bike and reduce, reduces, etc, but also think bigger - from you to future generations.
Kitah Zayin (Seventh Grade) Wednesday from Rabbi Finestone- We finished reviewing and practicing the prayers of the Torah service. Each student read several lines both individually, and as part of a chevruta, the Hebrew buddy study system. We then began the chapter in the Topical Bible, entitled, "Identifying with the Suffering of Others." We looked at three incidents in the life of Moses which showed how he suddenly became aware of the sufferings of others, and then took action. Sometimes his actions were failures, and at other times they were successful. We discussed the concept of "diffusion of responsibility," and talked about how Judaism requires us to intervene - but the key question is HOW to intervene. What is the correct way to intervene? Students then shared examples from their own experiences.
Sunday from Morah Michelle- Kitah Zayin chose our theme for the hospitality dinner...it is BARBIE!! For those of you that don't know, the 7th grade hospitality dinner is a wonderful event that the 7th graders put on every year. We cook, plan, decorate and feed our friends and family and all proceeds from the event will go towards a charity the 7th graders choose. SAVE THE DATE. This year's dinner is Friday, April 12th, 2024. If you have anything at your house that you think will work for our BARBIE theme, please send it in with your kiddo. We had A LOT of fun brainstorming and debating different event ideas. In honor of Black History Month, we learned about the history of Black Jews in America and around the world, we listened to the clean version of a Doja Cat(yes she's Jewish) song "Say So" and then I read a book called Yuvi's Candy Tree that detailed a Jewish girl's experience fleeing Ethiopia and moving to Israel. See you next week!
From Our Specials
News from the Sifriyah (Library) February is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion month. The foyer checkout bookcase will feature books for children, teens and adults on this theme.
Storytime
In Kita Bet and Vav we learned about the Jews of Yemen. We made a hamsa, got to try to blow a shofar made from the horn of a kudu antelope, looked at silver Torah pointers and a Yemenite style embroidered challah cover, and read a story entitled "The Wisdom Bird", about a hoopoe being rewarded by receiving a crown of feathers for teaching King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba a lesson in kindness towards animals and when some promises shouldn't be kept.
Gan was working on making mezuzot, and we read a story about hanging a mezuzah on the doorpost.
Kita Alef reviewed people from the Torah today, so we read a story about Adam giving names to all the animals. A student remembered another story about Adam and the Garden of Eden and we decided that there are lots of different stories about people in the Bible, not just one.
Reading Challenge- Remember that in addition to Har Shalom library books, PJ Library, school books or public library books count toward their Bingo reading challenge (as long as they have some Jewish contents. Some students are getting very close to making bingo and winning prizes!
