Overscheduled?

I was talking to a mother about JAWC the other day. “The public magnate school offers electives.” she said. Ok, so we don’t have electives, but every day in addition to general studies the children study modern Hebrew and Judaics. The children at JAWC do not need to enroll in religious or Hebrew school through their synagogues until they are in middle school, so they have much more time after school and on weekends to register in whatever extra-curricular activities they and their parents choose. R. is on a competitive swim team that practices twice a week and has weekend meets once a month, sometimes both days of the weekend. She doesn’t have religious school on Sunday morning to interfere with swim meets. She is also a girl scout and takes piano lessons. With all of these activities, R. still has two completely free afternoons each week. Unless there is a swim meet, every Saturday and every other Sunday are also completely free. Synagogue religious schools have a very important role in the community, but enrolling a child in a Jewish day school, like JAWC, can help keep the child from becoming overscheduled, providing them the time to pursue their interests.

Discussing Size

I often find myself in conversations with parents about how great JAWC has been for my kid. Generally the other parent tells me why they didn’t send their child to JAWC. Often that reason is size related, but usually the fellow parent never looked at the school or talked to Rabbi Aaron about it.

Many parents say “The school is to small" based on conversations they have had with other families who have not sent their children to JAWC. Instead, if the same parents would actually take a good look at what the school has to offer, they may discover something promising. If they then talk about it with fellow parents, a portion of them will also look and some will enroll their kids. The school would no longer be considered “too small”.

The second size related reason is “Socially, my child needs more kids in a class.” I have an extremely social child. Socially, she is perfectly happy in her small class (10 children, k-2). She is friends with every girl in the class. (Boys are almost a different species from the six year old girl’s perspective.) I know that any of those girls can come to my home after school and play quite happily with my daughter, and I’m happy to send her to any of her classmate’s homes. Besides her classmates, she has also maintained friendships from preschool and developed new friendships through extracurricular activities. She has plenty of friends. In a class of 25 kids, how many children is one child really friends with?

I’m not criticizing people for choosing to send their children to other schools after looking at all their options, and some parents do exhaustive research. I am frustrated by the tendancy that some parents have to exclude JAWC from that research because of its size. The small size is not a problem for the children, and if more parents enroll their children each year, it will grow.

She is learning something!

Sometimes while watching R. (6 yrs old) at, for instance, a childrens service at synagogue, I wonder, is she really internalizing all of this information about Judaism that is taught at school? She's not the kid who raises her hand to answer the questions that Rabbi Solomon or Amy Ripps ask during those services. I think she knows the answers and has something to say, but are they at the tip of her tongue?

Finally I saw a sign. R. reported that at practice for a sport she participates in, the coach commented that she didn't see her on Monday. "We have A LOT of holidays." R. said. The coached asked "Rosh Hashana?" Yes, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and then next week we have Sukkot." The coach had never heard of Sukkot, so R. explained. "When the Israelites were in the desert, they didn't have houses or restaurants or grocery stores. They had to build sukkahs." "What's a sukkah?" R. answered "A hut. So we build a hut in our yard for Sukkot, like the Israelites had in the dessert." And then she said "Mommy, she didn't know what a sukkah was, so I had to use the word "hut".

A simple answer. It was right at the tip of her tongue, she felt comfortable answering the question, and was confident in her answer.

First Day of School

School started today. Drop-off was a little crowded with all of the parents hanging out while their kids got settled, but there were smiles all around. Everyone was happy to say hello and shmooze a bit after the long summer break, but we couldn't hang out and turn the classroom into a coffee klatch. Morah (teacher) Erin had worksheets ready on the returning students' desks, so that they could jump right back into study. There were new kindergarteners who needed to be shown the ropes. We grown-ups had to get on with our days.

I didn't give school one moment's thought all day. I knew she was in good hands and was probably having a great day. When we went to pick her up she ran out smiling and gave us big hugs. I saw other kids doing the same thing. One K student told his Mom excitedly about a story the Morah Leah had read during Judaics about Bagels. They had read Bagels from Benny by Aubrey Davis. We had recieved this book from the PJ Library program and it's a really good one. One of R's favorites.

R. said when she got home that 1st grade is really different than kindergarten. There is much less playing and no rest period. She was a little annoyed that the new kindergarteners don't have to suffer through rest time like her class did but I'm guessing she'll get over that. It sounded like R. really enjoyed having the new kindergarteners in the mix. I asked if the 1st graders included them during free time and she promised me that they had.

I asked R what she did today that she liked. She said the best part of the day was making three different kinds of playdough, and she described to me the different recipes. When I got home, Morah Erin completed the playdough story with her email reporting on the first day. They made three very different types of playdough for their first science lab, which are being stored till tomorrow when the kids will compare and contrast.

Morah Erin's email also had photos of the kids involved in some of their first day activities. It was nice that she made sure that every kid in the class was in at least one of the photos.

The Month of May

It's been a whole month since I've posted and the year is coming to a close in a few weeks. We had another guest Rabbi this month. Rabbi Jurovics from Temple Beth Or came to Shabbat circle and told the children a story. Unfortunately I couldn't be there that day, but I just wanted to make a note that each Raleigh synagogue, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, has had a Rabbi participate in Shabbat circle at least once this year.

This last month has been really fun. The kids have gone on lots of field trips. They went to the Waste Management recycling facility, the N.C. Museum of Art, a farm with animals, the public library (where they each got their own card) and Strawberry picking.

I organized and led the trip to the art museum and was very pleased by the level of interest and good behavior the kids maintained for the entire visit. We went through all of the galleries currenty open plus hiked through the park to see some of the large outdoor installations. The children made wonderful observations about the artwork they encountered. One of my favorite moments was when we all sat in a circle in a room that had three huge but very different paintings hung, a Keifer, a Stella, and a Katz and the children discussed which one they liked best. The class was split in three, and each group gave a compelling k-1 level reason for liking their first choice. The other thing I noticed was that each child chose the painting that most resembled their own artistic approach!

A cute moment was in front of a painting showing the worship of the golden calf. One child stood their and found all sorts of inconsistencies with her understanding of the story. The museum guard listening to the conversation was both impressed and amused. "Mt. Sinai isn't a big mountain like that, it is a humble mountain. The Israelites wouldn't have dressed like that, etc, etc."

We also had our a school fundraiser this month, a barbeque at one parent's home. It was pouring rain that day and we worried that people wouldn't come. My husband said to me "Why are you so worried. A group of people who like eachother and are getting together to support an organization they care about." Almost everyone who had RSVPed came, and there were a few welcome extras that just showed up. All of the parents helped to make the event happen, and it was such a success.

Pesach

This year at the Passover seder we got to see our tuition dollars at work. R. was so well prepared for Pesach we were rather blown away.

The day before Pesach bread R. brought home a Hadagadah that she had made in school. Each page was simple. It had the name of one part of the seder written in Hebrew on the top of the page. The pages were printouts, but one each page she had added the vowels into title words that didn't have them, added printouts of prayers or visual clues to the page, or drawn and colored on it. It was obvious that a lot of work had gone into this. It was nicely bound with plastic rings and the cover was laminated. I had a look, complimented her work and stuck it into the bag we were taking out of town. At that time I didn't really expect it to be used at the seder.

The seder night came. We went to my Sister's home were she had 23 people. R. sat down in her seat, ready to start, and the FOLLOWED THE SEDER with her Hagadah from school. When my Brother-in-law announced that we were moving from Kadesh to Urchatz to Karpas, etc, she found the page on her own , looked at her page, listened, and enjoyed feeling like she was a part of it all. Sometimes there was a little back and forth between her and my Brother-in-law or other people at the table..."Are we here yet? Isn't this next?" etc.

Then, she sang the Four Questions, solo. I needed to help briefly by reminding her the first syllable of a word her or there, but basically, she sang it by herself. They had practiced it once every day in school for a couple of weeks and had to practice at home each night. Although R. is not shy, she has stage fright and we did not expect her to pull this off completely.

I am not telling you all of this to brag about my child. Obviously I think my kid is great, but we all have great kids and they all achieve all sorts of things. I'm telling this story to show how well prepared she was for what, in the Jewish world, is an important yearly event. If she is able to enjoy and understand a Passover seder at this level in kindergarten, I really look forward to the depth of experience and understanding that she will have at the Passover seder in a few years, as she advances through the Jewish Academy of Wake County.

Rabbi Solomon visits Shabbat Circle

Rabbi Solomon from Beth Meyer synagogue was the visiting Rabbi at Shabbat circle on Friday.

When he walked in the door of the K-1 class the three girls that attend Beth Meyer (including my daughter) were so excited they surrounded him, jumping up and down and making lots of happy noise. We had been working on a greeting card project in art, so a few of the kids made cards to welcome him and all the kids had signed their names. Then, the class dragged him around giving a tour of their K-1 classroom. They were so proud to show off their classroom and so excited to have him visit.

At Shabbat circle he began to tell a story about Miriam being the first to brave that first step into the Red Sea. Rather than it being a story that he told, it turned into a lively exchange, as the kids were familiar with the story and wanted to give their two cents as well. With all of the hand raising and back and forth, he did manage to squeeze a good lesson in there about how when something is hard but is the right thing to do, you just need to have faith and take that step.

Then the teachers and kids did the usual Shabbat circle thing, sharing what they had learned and achieved over the week. The first graders showed off their cursive, a few of the kindergartners read a story, and the 2nd-3rd graders read one paragraph each of their social studies essays on the Stamp Act. They sang a fun repetitive chant of the order of the Pesach Seder and the first and last of The Four Questions.

Rabbi Solomon's visit made Friday and Shabbat circle very special for my child. I thank him for coming.