4th Grade Aliyah Video Project

My 4th grade classes are really really different. In one class, I have a group who feel much more traditionally spiritually connected (most believe in a more traditional concept of G-d, they really enjoy and buy into more traditional prayer) my other class has a more diverse range of opinions on both G-d and Jewish practice. Our core curriculum focus this year is "What does it mean to be a part of the Jewish people?" for both groups this is a tough question, especially when thinking about Israel, a country that most of them have never been to but have learned so much about.

In our Israel curriculum this year, we are focused on some of the recent Aliyot to Israel: Yemenite Aliyah, Ethiopian Aliyah and Aliyah from the former Soviet Union. However, the idea of moving to Israel, Lashanah habaah is still really foreign to all my kids. Yes, they have heard of the Holocaust, but most of them have been lucky (depending on how you look at it) to grow up in the Boston area never having heard, seen or felt antisemitism.

In planning how I wanted to teach this, I sat down with one of my coworkers to brainstorm our goals.

• Students are able to empathize with those who faced antisemitism and oppression
• Students understand although they do not need to agree, with the Jewish concept of Lashanah Habaah
• Students are engaged and excited to learn about the process of making Aliyah from each country
• Students work with two or three other students and work well as a group
• Students are able to creatively present their findings in a 3-10 min video clip
• Students have a better understanding about the need for a Jewish state

To do this, we decided to break our three classes of 4th graders into nine small groups and assign them to topics as follows:

4B will focus on the culture of each country (Yemen, Ethiopia, former S.U.); what Jewish practices were like there, etc 

4C will focus on the reasons that the Jews left that country; oppression, isolation, general conditions

4A will focus on the Journey itself, what did it take for them to make it to Israel, how did they get there? Who helped, etc

In making movie trailers for this project, it was helpful to suss out each student's current tech abilities and resources in addition to other talents so that making the groups can be as successful as possible. Students will be able to play around with animation, documentary style productions and pretty much anything else that they can come up with that still will convey the process of Aliyah in a respectful way.

Tech Fellowship furthering intentionality in the classroom

The past two months, in this technology fellowship, I have really thought about what technology I use to further my own learning and in general in my own life. While it is really important to me to bring fun and engaging new technologies into my classrooms, I also want to make sure that my time and focus is still on the materials and that my students grasp Jewish concepts rather than just tech concepts. This tech fellowship has been really helpful in structuring my thoughts and experimentation with what can be helpful and what is just adding in tech for the sake of adding tech. Learning how other teachers are using technology and accessing teacher connection/resource pages has been the most useful to me. For example, I think that using a wiki as a way to organize events for high school students could be a less chaotic way to plan. I also want to continue to explore all the online recording and movie programs.