December 3rd, 2021 | 29th of Kislev, 5782 | Miketz מִקֵּץ
Dear Beit Rabban Community,
We have a minhag at Beit Rabban to share SHAhighlights every week at our assembly before SHAbbat. It's a way to feel connected to other classes and to reflect on our week with pride. It also inspires us each week when we hear about the wonderful things our friends are doing. Today was our annual Light It Up Shabbat Chanukah celebration, and each class found a way to bring extra light to school today however they interpreted that. I particularly enjoyed our Shtillim (second grade) class who described their approach as "ridiculously literal"- each student brought in an actual light, from flashlights to desk lamps, to brighten up their classroom. God bless their teachers for the patience it takes to have a flashlight in your eyes all day!
In honor of Light It Up Shabbat, I'd like to share a few of my own SHAhighLIGHTs from the week. These fabulous tidbits include a mix student and teacher quotes included in their class journals this week. I hope they light up your day with an extra dose of laughter and inspiration!
Wishing all a restful and rejuvenating and LIT Shabbat,
Stephanie
SHAhighLIGHTS!!!
As Monsieur Thenardier sang in Les Miserables, “Chanukiot of the house, doling out the fire. Ready to hear stories and be inspired...” This week in Pnina’s Hebrew group, students watched a video on teenagers who went through Shaarei Chesed, taking pictures of Chanukiot, other items related to Chanukah, and things they found generally beautiful.
You know how your mom is always badgering you to eat your vegetables? Well, in Science, we learned the reason behind the ribbing. This week, we... started our unit on metabolism: what our cells need to stay healthy and strong. We used a digital metabolism simulator/testing program to feed a digital human different foods so we could see how it affected the human’s overall energy production (Some groups aimed to make the human run completely out of energy!), and experimented with different diets and what they did to the human... next time your mom asks you to eat your vegetables, do it.
Today, Wavey Davey came to meet us in the park. He showed us a new guitar and a Banjo-lele, which was a Banjo combined with a ukulele.
This week we had the privilege of talking to Raphi Gold, a Beit Rabban graduate, about her work at the Jewish Youth Climate Movement. She spoke to us about not only the work she does, but also told us about ways that we can get involved in the climate movement.
Mollie came to visit us for an interview! We learned so much about her role as the Operations Manage... Here are some questions we asked her: Do you have lots of doctor tools? If someone is late to pick up their kids then why do you take them back upstairs and wait with them? Why are you not a doctor or a chef? Why don’t you come in our classroom a lot of times?
On Monday in Humanities, we learned about some ancient Greek philosophers ("lovers of wisdom"), such as Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle developed the rhetorical triangle, containing three methods of persuasion: Logos, or logic and evidence; Ethos, or authority or expertise; and Pathos, or values, beliefs, and feelings.
At park, Naama told a story about a banana that was afraid of the rain but her mother believed in her and supported her until she succeeded. It was a story about courage and faith.
We started studying another perek with our chavrutah partner... and took on a chavrutah challenge: "I will listen to my human partner and my text partner"... One student shared, "my partner helped me to translate a word. That helped me to understand the words better. That's listening to my human partner and text partner!"
We finally made it to the fifth borough: Staten Island! We travelled by subway, ferry, and bus to get to Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Gardens... On the ferry ride back, Jeremy and Elie explored the lower level of the boat and claimed that they saw a glass bottom. A few people were actually convinced. (editor's note: there actually was a glass bottom.)
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