Dear Kitah Alef Parents,

The rain may have been pouring hard outside this week, but that couldn’t keep us from our learning and fun. After music with Rabbi Bloom, we returned to our classroom to review the letters we have learned so far and add a new one to our list:

Since we couldn’t go outside for break, we spent it in our classroom playing games and doing Hebrew coloring sheets. During snack, we read a Tu B’Shevat story, which served as a nice transition to the day’s art project: a Tree of Life. After splitting up into two groups, we discussed the different ways that we as humans hurt the Earth, and more importantly, the sorts of things that we can do to help the Earth. Then the kids decorated trees of their own with the ideas they came up with. We finished the day by working on a class tree, which the kids decorated with leaves containing their ideas about improving the world around them (see the photos below or our photo album).

The kids were really excited about the project, and the tree turned out beautiful!

In honor of Tu B’shvat, we are going to have a Tu B’shvat seder for our January 26th class. Part of the seder involves tasting a variety of fruits. We would love it if you could send with your child one of the items below. Please email us by Friday the 22nd to let us know what you can bring so we can make sure we have all of our items. For the fruits, we just need enough for each student (there are 13) to have a taste.

What we need:

• Two (2) kinds of grape juice – red and white – enough for each student to have 4 mini cups
• Fruit with outer shell – like a nut
• Fruit with an inner pit – dates, olives, cherries, plums
• Fruit with both an outer shell and inner pit – carob, avocado, pomegranate, orange
• Fruit that is entirely edible – figs, raisins, strawberries, grapes

As always, please let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you, and have a great week,

Eugene & Zephira

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