January JCS Brings Back the Boxes (Zoom, that is)

I hope 2022 has started well for all of you, at least in most ways. One way it has not gone well for any of us is the wide increase in transmission of the Covid, especially the Omicron variant. Thus, our January session took us back to online learning via Zoom.

The good thing, at least, is that we were able to quickly reconstruct the process we spent several months figuring out last year, and the class sessions all went smoothly. We were able to hold our Tu B’Shevat seder on Zoom as well, with our older students and teachers participating as readers.

We will carefully track the course of the pandemic to decide whether we can go back to holding our classes in-person in February.

Take a look at what each of our JCS classes spent their Sunday morning on Zoom doing.

The Littles Group, Age 3 – Kindergarten – teacher Amy Leavitt

We learned about the holiday of Tu B’shevat (with some help from Shalom Sesame), and the importance of being Planet Protectors. We read Sadie’s Snowy Tu B’Shevat by Jamie Korngold, and learned about what to expect at the Seder. We then talked about the wonderful things we get from trees (paper, wood, fruits, and more), read Luna & Me: The True Story of a Girl Who Lived in a Tree to Save a Forest by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, and watched a video about the redwood trees in California.

The Middles Group, grades 1-2 – teacher Colline Roland

For our first online meeting this year we had a few technical difficulties however, we were able to accomplish a discussion, craft, and book! We made ‘fruit faces’ and read “Thank a Tree” in honor of everything trees give us. We talked about the importance of trees and realized, by looking around us, just how important trees are. Some of us even had photos of trees framed on our wall.

The Juniors Group, grades 3-5 – teacher Renee Dorman

The Juniors took a virtual field trip to Ellis Island to learn about the experience of many Jewish immigrants to the United States, especially from eastern Europe. Then we shared family artifacts and drew our own suitcases of special belongings.

Arriving at Ellis Island in 1902

The B’Mitzvah Prep Group, grades 6-7 – teacher Eva Cohen

This lesson, the B Mitzvah Prep class focused on learning about the Exodus story and its influence on culture. Students read aloud the first two chapters of Exodus (in translation) and discussed them from a Humanistic Jewish perspective. Discussion touched on the Exodus story as an inspiration for Jewish opposition to oppression, along with the real history behind the story.

There is no evidence that the events described in Exodus occurred, but scholars theorize that the expulsion of the West Asian Hyksos Dynasty from Egypt or Canaanite suffering during the period of Egyptian imperial control may have inspired a collective ‘memory’ that morphed historical events into legendary form. After discussion, students watched a couple of movie clips retelling parts of Exodus 2, including a clip from the 1998 animated film The Prince of Egypt and a clip from the 1956 live-action film The Ten Commandments (through 2:00).

Then the class did a funny Exodus-themed photo scavenger hunt, where students staged and photographed tableaus of scenes from the Exodus story incorporating props and joke prompts. You can see some of the students’ awesome work in the photos shared here! Before class ended students reviewed their assigned reading parts in the Tu B’Shevat seder, and then the class rejoined the larger group to help lead Or Emet’s Tu B’Shevat seder.