We provide opportunities for students to explore and understand how our ancient tradition provides meaning and direction in our lives and how we educate students about the most foundational parts of our tradition, including history, theology and culture.
Our curriculum focuses on three core questions:
- What does it mean for me to be part of a Jewish family?
- What does it mean for me to be Jewish?
- What does it mean for me to be part of a Jewish community?
During their time in our programs, students will learn about holidays, God, Israel, Hebrew, Torah, history and values in a cyclical pattern using the material learned in each unit in order to answer these core questions. We rely heavily on Project-Based Learning (PBL), which is both a philosophy and a process that focuses on differentiated learning, real world connections and a depth of meaning making. This gives us an organic structure to incorporate a variety of topics into each year's curriculum. We believe this range of content (rather than studying one topic for the majority of the year) will be more interesting for students and help them better understand and answer the core question for their grade.
Kindergarten and First Grade - What does it mean for me to be part of a Jewish family?
- Jewish names and naming ceremonies
- Shabbat
- Jewish holidays
- What do you do and who do you see at the synagogue
- Families in the Torah
Second and Third Grade - What does it mean for me to be Jewish?
- Jewish holidays
- God
- Shabbat
- Torah
- Israel
Fourth and Fifth Grade - What does it mean for me to be part of a Jewish community?
- Facing History, Facing Ourselves
- Immigration as a Jewish narrative (Biblical, America, Israel)
- Jewish history
- Israel
- Jews in popular culture
- Exploring Torah and Torah study by looking at two biblical themes: second chances and freedom
Sixth Grade - What does it mean for me to be part of a Jewish community?
Our sixth graders spend the year learning about each of their Torah portions in depth as a preperation for their B'nai Mitzvot. Our goals in this program are to teach the skills needed to engage in the Jewish tradition of Torah study and for students to begin to create a elationship with their Bar or Bat Mitzvah Torah portion.