SIMCHAS TORAH

The last 2 days of Sukkos is celebrated as Simchas Torah. It is a time we celebrate the completion of the Torah portions and we start reading it all over again right away.
On Simchas Torah, we dance with the Torah and wave flags. Each K2 friend made their own flag. It had doors which really opened and closed and behind the doors were the Torahs we decorated.
On the back, everybody drew their own picture of people dancing and celebrating.

After we were done, everybody danced with the flags around the tables in the classroom. It was so much fun!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUKKOS

K2 was been busy at work getting read for the holiday of SUKKOS.

The class formed a sukkah with the bodies, some friends were the floor, others were the walls and the rest used their arms as schach branches and leaves for the roof

We also made our own Lulav and Esrog set. We scrunched the esrog down into the oval shape. Scrunching strengthens our fingers. We rolled the Lulav up and twisted our pipe cleaners to secure it in place. Lots of fine motor skills were required for this.

K2 also made foam lanterns to hand up in the sukkah.
We cut and decorated - it was so much fun!

Sukkah Fun

On Monday, all of the classes had a scavenger hunt to find pieces of the mystery Sukkos puzzle. In 3 different groups, the K2 friends formed their puzzle and then enjoyed a delicious pizza lunch in the Sukkah.

LULAV AND ESROG

On Monday and Tuesday all of the Mazel Day School friends had a chance to eat lunch in the Sukkah at school. We shook a real Lulav and Esrog. See below a photo of each K2 friend who shook the lulav on Monday. 

Yom Kippur

The holiday of Yom Kippur is a time for a fresh start. We prepare by gathering as many mitzvos as we can so that when Hashem decides how our year will turn out, He sees that our good choices far outweigh anything else.

We all thought of good deeds we can do and placed a unifix block on the scale for each one.

Morah described a few mistakes we might  make and used a black cube for each one but the 'good choices' side was much heavier!! 

 

 

KAPAROS!!

There is an ancient Jewish custom that on the eve of Yom Kippur, we ask Hashem to take any potential 'bad decrees' which may be in store for us in the coming year and transform them into good outcomes.
This is illustrated by taking a chicken and turning it around our heads in a circle. The chicken has the power to be used for a mitzvah (to feed poor people). The chicken takes on any potential negatives and transforms them into a mitzvah, being used for a good purpose.

Alternatives to chicken include using money and some communities use a fish.

Rabbi Naftali brought a male rooster for the boys in K2 and a female chicken for the girls in K2. He helped us do kaparos and say the special prayer. 

What do we do on Yom Kippur? What don't we do??

K2 looked at some of the 'dos and donts' of the day itself. We used two sorting rings and pulled items from a 'magic bag'. We discussed each one as it was pulled out and decided if it should go in the DO or DON'T ring.

 

  

 
• We DO pray in shul all day using a special siddur/prayer book called a machzor
• We DO wear shoes which are not made of leather
• We DO often wear white
  (men wear a special jacket like a lab coat called a kittel)

            We do NOT eat or drink (above the age of 12 for girls and 13 for boys)

               We do NOT wear make-up, cream and perfume
                We do NOT have a bath or shower