What it must have felt like during the plague of darkness

Introduction to Gematria- Numerical Value of hebrew letters

This weeks Torah Portion is called "Bo" , which means "Come." There is always a deeper lesson into the Torah portion, that the name of it tells us! We found an interesting connection, by introducing the children to the concept of "Gematria" (numerical value of the Alef beis)

The Hebrew letters that create the word Bo, are an Alef and Beis, which according to the "Gematria" (numerical value) of each letter, corresponds to 1 (alef)  and 2 (Beis) =  3

The "Gematria" of Bo = 3- which hints to the fact that this weeks Torah Portion describes the last 3 plagues that Hashem sent to Pharoah and the Egyptians!

Faiga is connecting the Hebrew words for each plague with the corresponding images of the plague!

Plague of "Choshech" Darkness- 

To help the children understand what it might have been like for the Egyptians (and Jews) during the plague, we played a fun game. And at the same time developed some great communication and empathy skills!

 The children were in pairs, where one child had their eyes covered/blindfolded, and the other was instructed to guide the one who couldn't see. They were instructed to walk along a line that was taped to the floor. 

 

Morah Davina modeled it for everyone, and all the children did their best to guide her and direct her which way to walk. 

The children  had to work together to guide the friend who was "experiencing choshech" and gave them a real taste for what it might have been like during this plague that actually lasted 6 days! (not 6 minutes!)

"Choshech" Darkness Art

Painted papers black, and then stuck on many pairs of eyeball stickers in the dark! We learned that only the Jewish people were able to see during this plague! The Egyptians were completely blind!

 

Phases of the Moon

We learned that over the span of 30 days in the month, the moon changes each and every day! It begins with being a tiny slither. during the first days and slowly gets thicker and bigger, until it looks like a complete circle in the middle, on the 15th of the month. Then it slowly begins to get smaller and smaller until it gets to the 30th day when it looks like there is almost no moon.

We called up 3 friends, each who have 10 fingers, to represent each of the 30 days of the month.

Mina was in the middle and had her hands in a position that had 5 on one side of the month, and 5 on the other. By counting the children's fingers, 10 +5 =15, and then another 5 + 10= 15- totaled the whole 30 days of the Jewish month!

We also used 30 circle counters to mark the 30 days of the month, and placed pictures of the shape of the moon of what it would look like at each of the stages of the month. 

 

We used different shapes of the moon to create art, and reflect on what days of the month the moon looks like.

Preparing for Yud Sh'vat!

We are one week away from a very special day  on the Chassidic calendar. Its the day that will mark 70 years since the Chabad Rebbe, became the Rebbe. We are doing something small each day to prepare ourselves for the special day! One day we watched a short video, another day we heard a story. We will do something special together on Tuesday to mark this day!

Social Studies-

We continued to look at the continents using maps of the world, and zooming in on our own united states!

Using parchment paper, the children traced all 52 states of our Country America. 

Tamar is coloring a map of just our state, California. 

 

We also looked at a Map of our own city Camarillo, and learned about the "key" that tells us more about the map, to help us find landmarks

The children then had a lot of fun creating their OWN map Key! For the places they KNOW around our town!