Shalom Shiraniks!

This week was filled with getting to know each other, learning about Jewish music and exploring ways in which we express our Jewishness.

We spent our first weekday session learning about the Jewish calendar and how it works.  The students learned that:

• The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar (New moon, new month!)
• The new month is called Rosh Chodesh
• Rosh Hashanah (the head of the year) is both the beginning of a new month and the beginning of the Jewish year.  
• Most major Jewish festivals (lasting 8 days) fall in the middle of the month, during the full moon
• The cycle of the moon starts on the right (new, or waxing moon) and move through the cycle to the left (waning moon), just like the way we read Hebrew
• Jewish holidays fall into three categories:  Those that come from the Torah, those that come from the Talmud and those that come from the state of Israel
• Each holiday has it's own nusach, or tune for the prayers (more about this later!)

After learning about the calendar, the students began working on a class quilt project called "What's Your Note?"  In this project, the students created quilt pieces (from paper) that express their individual "NOTE":

N:  NATURE - What is your personality?
O: OVATION - What have you done that you are proud of?
T:  TALENTS  - What are your talents?
E: EXPRESSION - How do you express your Jewishness?

On Sunday, we finished our quilt pieces and learned more about the upcoming High Holy Days.  Among other things, we learned that:

• During the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah, we hear the shofar 
• The New Year begins with a period of ten days, called the Days of Awe, or Days of Repentance.  The first two of these days are called Rosh Hashanah
• Rosh Hashanah is celebrated with apples and honey and honeycake
• Kol Nidre is a time of introspection
• When we ask for forgiveness about something that we had done the previous year, we need to ask forgiveness from:
• God
• The person(s) we wronged (this is really the hard part!)
• Ourselves
• More to come next week...
  

We will be putting up the class quilt later this week, as well as starting to learn about the music that would have been heard in the First and Second Temples, so stay tuned!

Welcome to Shira 2019-20

Shalom Shiraniks!

What an exciting year it's going to be!  We will be singing, dancing, percussing (is that a word?), listening, playing (music AND games!), creating, kibbutzing, exploring, shmoozing, collaborating, and just plain having fun.

Today, we kicked off our new JQuest year with a pancake breakfast (brunch for 2nd session), rousing tefillah and getting to know you games.  The Shiraniks joined their parents, sibs (and even a grandparent or two!) for pancakes, photos and socializing in the Social Hall (of course!). Parents, thank you for posing with your kids for a Shira photo today.  You all looked great!

 
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Then we headed to the Shira classroom to learn about what's in store in Shira this year, play a few getting-to-know-you games and making music with "found" instruments.

We learned that anything around us can be made into an instrument in some way.  The world is such a musical place!

We also learned the traditional Shira tzedakah song, which gets sung at the beginning of each session, when each student donates their tzedakah, and the "jingle" for our class blog (a great way to remember the URL!)

What great energy in class today!  I learned that you ALL have great rhythm,😀 and you learned that I make up songs all day long! 😛

At our wonderful family tefillah, we sang our kickoff parody song and had the pleasure of hearing Rabbi LeVine blow the shofar in preparation for the High Holy Days.  How lucky we are to have an expert in the house!  Tekiah Gedolah!

If you are interested in learning more about why we blow the shofar this time of year, check out this article from My Jewish Learning.com:
Ask the Expert: Why Blow the Shofar?

We will be collecting tzedakah every session, so please keep that in mind when preparing to come to JQuest (Parents, an extra dollar or so each session makes a difference!  Thanks!)

For those of you who did not get my phone number on their rosters, I can be texted or called at (925)360-5940.  Feel free to contact me should you have any questions or concerns about your child's experience here at JQuest.
Ask your child about:
Rhythm, Melody and Lyrics (we learned that these are three of the main components of many forms of music.)
I am looking forward to an awesome year with you!
Shalom, y'all!
Erin