Beth El Synagogue Center

Religious School Highlights

Gan (Kindergarten):

Looking Back:

  • Torah Stories: We learned the Adam, Even & the Garden of Eden story emphasizing the value of listening to rules and choosing what’s right, even if someone is guiding you to not make a good choice. This involved playing a game of choices where children moved to the red or green paper and then shared their thinking of following the rule or not.
  • Holidays: The children have begun learning about Hanukkah. We learned about the story and history from the book, Maccabee!, The Story of Hanukah, emphasizing doing what’s right and pride in being Jewish. The children then got the chance to be Maccabees and march around the classroom and clean up and fix the Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple), like the Maccabees did (a giant floor puzzle shmeared with marker).
  • Classroom community and mitzvot: The children learned about the mitzvah of tzedakah with the book, Quarters, Dimes, Nickels, Pennies and decorated their own tzedakah boxes. Thank you for sending in the tzedakah money that they collect which they have fun putting in the classroom tzedakah box while singing our tzedakah song.

Looking Ahead:

  • We will explore the Chanukah laws and customs just in time for the holiday.
  • We will continue our Torah stories with Noah’s Ark and The Tower of Babel.


Thought Question: How can we be brave like Maccabees?

Kitah Alef (1st Grade):

Looking Back:

  • Hebrew Reading: In our PHD books, we are becoming familiar with the format and are almost finished with the first chapter. We have begun decoding words and will be receiving more homework in which to practice and become more fluent. 
  • Hebrew Language and Vocabulary: We have been learning the Chanukah vocabulary as well as doing activities and movement using the Hebrew names of our body parts.
  • Torah Stories: We have covered the first three parshiot in Bereishit: Bereishit (Creation, Adam & Eve), Noach (Noah and the Flood), and Lech Lecha (meeting Abraham and Sarah). The learners enjoy discussing the moral dilemmas the characters have been facing. 
  • Israel: We love our “shinshinim”, Noy and Nimrod, and are always excited about the activities they prepare for us! We have been “traveling” around Israel.
  • Shabbat and Holidays: We review the brachot every week and have been working on a Shabbat box in art class with Morah Beth. We have also been preparing for Hanukkah with Cantor Gaby and in class. We have been practicing Hanukkah songs and the blessings.

Looking Ahead:

  • We are very excited for Hanukkah! We will learn about the customs and traditions, as well as read stories about Hanukkah and prepare to light our candles.
  • The children will be introduced to color words, family words, and Tu B’Shevat words.
  • We will continue our study of the Book of Bereishit, including the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs.
  • We have a much colder climate in the US than our people do in Israel. It is hard to believe that we will soon be welcoming Shevat in the new secular year.

Thought Question: In spite of their oppression by the Greeks in the Chanukah story, what do you think made the Jewish people persist in their belief in Hashem (God)?

Kitah Bet & Kitah Gimel (2nd & 3rd Grades):

Looking Back: 

  • Torah Stories: We continue to focus on Parshat HaShavua (the weekly Torah reading), and Kitah Gimel goes more in-depth after Kitah Bet leaves early on Sundays. Morah Marcia, who is also a professional storyteller, prefers to tell the stories as an introduction on Thursdays, and Morah Ariel reinforces them on Sundays through Torah Comics or Sedra Scenes skits. We have watched the evolution of the Jewish family, starting with Abraham, and are now focusing on his descendents.
  • Hebrew and Tefillah: Our learners continue to be highly motivated as they work in their PHD Hebrew books. Some of our classmates have already moved up to a new workbook, and we’re very proud of everyone’s progress! In Tefillah, we have been practicing the Hanukkah blessings and songs, so we’re ready for our next holiday.
  • Jewish Calendar & Holidays: While the month of Cheshvan is a holiday-free month, we took this time to catch up on making our monthly calendar, and are now preparing for Kislev and Hanukkah.
  • Israel: We love our “shinshinim”, Noy and Nimrod, and are always excited about the activities they prepare for us! We have been “traveling” around Israel.

Looking Ahead:

  • We’ve already been jamming out to Hanukkah songs in the background during class, and now we’re ready to start learning about the history holiday and our traditions. 
  • We are excited to continue our Hebrew reading progress as we develop our fluency and speed.
  • We will continue our Torah stories, focusing on our “doubles”–twins, two wives, and then ending up with 12 sons!

Thought Question: What are some of your family’s Hanukkah traditions? We encourage you to discuss them with your children, so they can share in class.


Kitah Dalet (4th Grade):

Looking Back:

  • Torah: We have compared the Torah with the Bible (the Torah is the first 5 books of the Bible [Tanach]). We learned the names of the first 5 books in English along with a short synopsis of what is in each book.
  • Holidays: We talked about the Jewish calendar and the names of the months. We also learned about the phases of the moon. We began our Hanukkah studies and preparing for the school celebration. 
  • Hebrew: We work with Morah Miri on our Hebrew studies. Each learner continues to work at their own pace, and reads aloud to one of the two teachers. Our goal for the year is to build fluency and confidence with decoding. We also continue to use useful vocabulary. Many learners are doing their Reading Logs and practicing on a regular basis. Yasher Koach (Kudos) to Talia and Shawn, who almost always handed it in. 
  • Jewish Values/Mitzvot: We spoke about mitzvot, and how there are Religious as well as Ethical mitzvot. There are also Positive (things we do) and Negative (things we should not do). We also made connections between Thanksgiving and the idea of giving thanks in Judaism. We connected the holiday of Sukkot with Thanksgiving.

Looking Ahead:

  • We will continue to prepare for Hanukkah by exploring the story, brachot (blessings), traditions and songs. We will read the book, There is No Such Thing as a Chanukkah Bush, Shirley Goldstein.
  • We will celebrate Hanukkah with the residents of Willow Towers assisted living facility.
  • We will be beginning our reading of the text from the Book of Shemot (Exodus) and make connections to the Torah.
  • We will continue to talk about and do mitzvot.
  • We will continue to work on our Hebrew Decoding skills, prayer skills as well as basic vocabulary.

Thought Question:  How can I become a mensch (good person)? What mitzvot can I do?

Kitah Hey (5th Grade):

Looking Back:

  • Jewish History: This has been our focus in November, and the class created a giant timeline illustrating Jewish history. The timeline starts with the first Temple built by King Solomon and ends with the establishment of the modern state of Israel, and includes key “moments” in Jewish history. As we delve into these more, we’ll add more to the timeline.
  • Prayer & Tefillah: We are hard at work learning the prayer “Ashrei.”  We do this by singing the prayer and playing educational movement games, such as “Simon Says.” The leader says verbs which are found in the prayer and everyone else makes physical gestures demonstrating that they know the meaning of the verbs.
  • Hebrew: We are continuing to progress through our PHD Hebrew books. With Morah Miri’s assistance, we are able to differentiate the Hebrew for each learner to work at their own pace.
  • Holidays: We have been reviewing the Hanukkah blessings and songs with Cantor Gaby that we will sing on our field trip to Willow Towers in December.
  • Israel: We love our “shinshinim”, Noy and Nimrod, and are always excited about the activities they prepare for us! We have been “traveling” around Israel.

Looking Ahead:

  • We will be delving more into Hanukkah.
  • We are beginning to explore the third book of the Torah–Leviticus.
  • We will start learning about the modern state of Israel.

Thought Question: How can we compare and contrast the Hanukkah story with what is going on in the world today?

Middle School:

Looking Back: 

  • Lifecycles: In November, we began to learn about Jewish traditions for each step of our lives, including the brit milah, pidyon haben, baby naming, and the upsherin. We talked about the value of naming a child and the meanings behind our own names.
  • Art: In our lifecycles studies, we have focused on infant rituals. As we learned about our Hebrew names, we used them as inspiration for an art project. We also made Hanukkah cards for IDF soldiers, as part of an initiative to maintain morale during this difficult time. We are transitioning to start a drawing or painting depicting ourselves in a location in Israel to connect with our Jewish/Israeli History curriculum.
  • Parshat HaShavua (weekly Torah portion): We review the weekly parasha and  then discuss what we can learn from these stories and how they can relate to us in 2023. Whether it is about God testing Abraham, working with those who are different from us, the story about Esau and Jacob and favoritism, Laban taking advantage of Jacob, or how it feels to be lied or deceived vs. being the one to lie or deceive, the learners have lots of relevant ideas to share. 
  • Hebrew and Tefillah: Kitah Vav has continued working on learning to read and lead the Torah service, and has been working on Ein Kamocha. Gesher is focusing on “fine tuning” key prayers and songs– Hatikvah, Ein Keloheinu, Aleinu, Adon Olam, common Siddur vocabulary and we just started Ashrei. On Thursdays, Morah Miri works with our learners in smaller groups to focus on reading fluency, Hebrew script, and adding in some fun games and activities utilizing Modern Hebrew.
  • Jewish & Israeli History: We continued on our journey in understanding our connection to the land of Israel from Biblical times through present day. We started in the Torah, exploring how Abraham, the Spies and the Tribes (who wanted to remain on the other side of the Jordan and not settle in Canaan) were connected to the Land. We then moved to a deeper focus on the 12 tribes of Israel and more specifically about the 10 lost tribes. We learned about how Eretz Yisrael was split into two Kingdoms, and we then went to the present and learned about some surprising locations Jews live today. We learned about the Judean expulsion to Babylonia and then discussed the importance of continuing our Jewish traditions. We also watched an interview of Margalit Zinati, whose family history testifies to a continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. We then finished the month beginning to learn about the foundations of Zionism and the kibbutz movement. 
  • Israel: In addition to focusing on our ancient connections to Israel, Nimrod, one of our Shinshinim, has been building connections to Modern Israel. In honor of Yom Rabin, a day to honor Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, our middle schoolers delved into the topic of legitimate protest vs. hate speech, and made important distinctions and connections. 

Looking Forward: 

  • We will be continuing to learn more about the history of Israel and Zionism.
  • We will be writing our own versions of the Shema as a six word story as a window into our identities.
  • We will continue learning about the lifecycle of Judaism, with classes focused on b’nei mitzvah, weddings, and more.
  • We study ancient Jewish texts to understand the story(ies) and miracle(s) of Hanukkah.
  • We will also expand on our Tanakh learning with the stories of Megillat Esther and the book of Ruth.
  • We have an upcoming mitzvah project of making sandwiches for Hope Community Services.

Thought Question: Would we feel as connected to a Jewish homeland if it was somewhere else?

Past Highlights: September & October

Gan (Kindergarten):

Looking Back:

  • Torah Stories: Gan has been introduced to the Torah with the first story of Beresheet. In addition to learning the story, the children played a relay game, finding items that connected to the day of creation they were assigned.
  • Holidays: The children had fun making decorations for the Beth El sukkah after we read a fun book about building and decorating a sukkah and inviting guests to the sukkah.
  • Classroom Community and Mitzvot: We read the book, How Full is Your Bucket?, and the children decorated cups to create their own buckets. Now when they do mitzvot in class (like helping each other, etc.) they get a blue bead (representing a drop of water). They can give each other or themselves beads as they see people doing mitzvot. This helps them to be more aware of opportunities to do mitzvot and letting each other know how they feel about it.

Looking Ahead:

  • We will learn about tzedakah soon, and will ask the learners to do tzedakah at home and bring their boxes to class.
  • We will continue our exploration of Torah stories with Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.
  • Hanukkah is coming! We will focus on this, including on the story/history and laws and customs of the holiday.

Thought Question: What are ways we can do mitzvot (kindnesses) in the world?

Kitah Alef (1st Grade):

Looking Back:

  • Hebrew: In our PHD books, we started to get used to reading right-to-left and to learn the sounds of and proper formation of the symbols for “resh” and “heh”. We are also recognizing these letters in our Hebrew names and in signs and labels around the room. Additionally, we have been learning the vocabulary of our basic routines and of the holidays we have celebrated thus far. With the help of our “shinshinim”, these are being reinforced.
  • Torah Stories: After Simchat Torah, we started reading the Torah again, and Kitah Alef began to learn the stories in Bereishit. So far, we have read about how Hashem created the world in 6 days and rested on the seventh (Shabbat)!
  • Israel: We see our “shinshinim” weekly, and they always bring us an activity to help us connect to the language and culture of “Eretz Israel”.
  • Holidays: We helped decorate the sukkah and got to shake lulav and etrog for Sukkot. We also met with Rabbi Schuck who showed us a real Torah and taught us a lot about it for Simchat Torah.

Looking Ahead:

  • We are starting to prepare for Chanukah by reviewing the “brachot” with Cantor Gaby, who meets with us weekly for Tefillah. We will be going into more detail as the month of Kislev rolls around. In our reading program, we continue to learn the letters and sounds in Book 1 and actually begin to read, in Hebrew, words and even “tefillot” that we already know.
  • We will be continuing our study of Bereishit. Because of time constraints, we will not be reading a different “parsha” each week but will be moving ahead at our own pace and will finish Bereishit by the end of the school year.
  • We will continue to connect our learning to the land of Israel, its people, traditions, and language.

Thought Question:
Wherever we are in the world, synagogue services are basically the same, especially the texts. Have you ever been to a different synagogue? What did you notice?

Kitah Bet & Kitah Gimel (2nd & 3rd Grades):

Looking Back:

  • Holidays & Calendar: We celebrated Sukkot by creating beautiful decorations and shaking lulav and etrog. After Simchat Torah, we have started with Parshat HaShavua–the weekly Torah story. We have also made Jewish calendars to help us understand how the Jewish calendar works and the cycle of the holidays.
  • Torah Stories: We have learned about Breishit (Creation and Adam and Eve), Noah and the Flood, and Abraham and Sarah, the first Jews, as we follow Parshat HaShavua. In Kitah Gimel, we have been focusing on the Jewish values, or middot in the parsha, such as Abraham pursuing peace. We have been using skits, comics and read alouds as we explore each parsha.
  • Hebrew: Everyone really dove back into Hebrew with our PHD books, and several learners are ready to move into new books!
  • Israel: We love time with Noy, our Shinshinit! We have been focusing on Am Yisrael–feeling part of the Jewish people and caring for our family in Israel. We made cards to send to our Shinshinim from last year, who are now Israeli soldiers, as well as learned about Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross.

Looking Ahead:

  • Next up is Chanukah. We’re learning the brachot with Cantor Gaby, and we’re looking forward to learning new songs.
  • We will continue moving through Parshat HaShavua, as well as focusing more in-depth on our Torah Stories with Kitah Gimel.
  • Our Hebrew progress will continue as we work to improve our reading and vocabulary skills.

Thought Question: Abraham left his home to go to a place that God showed him. Has anyone in our family had to leave their home?

Kitah Dalet (4th Grade):

Looking Back:

  • Torah: We have been talking about the Torah – what it is, what is in it and how we connect to it.
  • Holidays: We explored the Fall holidays and the Jewish calendar. We made sukkah decorations and shook lulav and etrog, and we learned about the parts of the Torah for Simchat Torah.
  • Hebrew: We covered some basic vocabulary about our feelings, the days of the week and the weather. We assessed our Hebrew decoding skills and are working on building accuracy as well as fluency. Morah Laurie encourages practice at home and filling in the daily reading practice log at least 3 times a week.

Looking Ahead:

  • We’ll be preparing for Hanukkah by exploring the story, brachot (blessings), traditions and songs.
  • We will be beginning our studying the Book of Shemot (Exodus) in a few weeks.
  • We will be talking about Mitzvot and categorizing them into Ritual and Ethical Mitzvot.
  • We will continue to work on our Hebrew Decoding skills, prayer skills as well as basic vocabulary.

Thought Question: How do I connect with the Torah?

Kitah Hey (5th Grade):

Looking Back:

  • Holidays: We made sukkah decorations and also shook lulav and etrog for Sukkot. We began reviewing our Torah stories after Simchat Torah, in honor of restarting the year.
  • Torah Stories: We reviewed the stories from the Books of Genesis and Exodus, and the learners retold stories that they remembered from last year.
  • Hebrew and Tefillah: We reviewed the prayer “Ve’Ahav’ta” in class through creative games and activities, and we are continuing to make progress in our PHD books. 

Looking Ahead:

  • We will learn about Hanukkah and its blessings.
  • We will learn the prayer “Ashrei.” We have already started this.
  • We will learn about the Book Leviticus.

Thought Question: How do the Five Books of the Torah relate to each other?

Middle School:

Looking Back:

  • Holidays: This month was full of holiday learning! We got to learn about Sukkot, what makes a sukkah kosher, and what the blessings for the lulav and etrog really mean. During our art time, we focused on Ushpizin–the special guests that we symbolically invite to our sukkahs. Each learner picked a combination of guests to invite, both historical and modern, and created a hanging decoration highlighting their Ushpizin and why they chose them. We also focused on Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret, and the joy of getting an extra holiday to spend with family.
  • Torah & Tanakh: On Sundays, we often focus on themes from Parshat HaShavua, the weekly parsha. These themes include how our families serve as our protection, the courage to start something new, what to do if we use hurtful words to others, and how our family’s histories connect us to Israel. On Thursdays, we also started learning about the Tanakh (the complete Jewish Bible), and what each book discusses in the Torah.
  • Jewish Identity & Values: We answered the question: Who Am I?, with the first five things that came to mind. We compared our answers with a partner and talked about our identity. Then, we did the exercise again asking: Who Am I as a Jewish Person? We then made posters, sharing these ideas. In art, we are also exploring the histories behind our names, and how they connect us to our families.
  • Israeli History: We began to talk about the history of Israel and recognizing the Jewish connections to Israel from Biblical times to modern day, starting with ancient Israelites in Canaan. We also learned that Israel was not the only option a Jewish state that the early Zionists considered–Uganda was on the table!
  • Hebrew & Tefillah: During Hebrew, we balance focused Hebrew reading time, Tefillah practice with Cantor Gaby that focuses on parts of the service your children might lead at their b’nei mitzvah, and learning and reviewing specific prayers with Morah Ann and Morah Ivy. Kitah Vav is moving through the Torah service, practicing reading the words, learning what the words mean, and even learning Beth El’s melodies. Gesher started the year focusing on Hatikvah, and is now reviewing the end of Musaf to confirm their pronunciations.

Looking Ahead:

  • We will be writing our own versions of the Shema as six-word stories.
  • We will be continuing to learn more about the history of Israel from Biblical times onward.
  • We will begin to talk about lifecycles, mainly the traditions that come about in Jewish life as we grow up. We’ll start out with the Brit Milah and work our way up to different celebrations throughout the year.
  • We will also delve into different stories within Judaism! For Kitah Vav, we’ll explore the book of Ruth, and for Gesher we’ll discuss Megillat Esther.

Thought Questions: Why do we have so many different books in the Tanakh, and what does each one represent? What is our connection to the land of Israel?

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