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.

Plan for using technology in the classroom

Option 1:
I have created a main wiki page for my 2nd and 3rd grade Bereshit class that will have links to every unit's individual wiki page. For example, the unit Joseph: From Pit to Palace has a wiki page with a webquest of sorts. On this wiki page, students will review the material (with embedded youtube videos as well as written instructions for book reading), answer a couple questions, and choose an option for their own creative final project.

 The options for the project include:

1. Being the rabbi and coming up with your own questions about the story (posted right onto that section by the student) 
2. Film a news report about the story (using my Iphone and/or TBZ filming capabilities with laptops and a handheld camera) 
3. Drawing a scene in the story (to be scanned and submitted onto the page) 
4. Create a wordle with the words that you think are most important in the story (I'm not sure how one would post this other than printing it out and scanning it) 
5. Write and record a song (Iphone and garageband on laptop) Again, all of these projects would be posted on the Joseph: From Pit to Palace wiki page.

Option 2: Using the same wiki page, students will be asked to take the following steps after review the material:

1. Come up with a list of questions about the story 
2. For each question, think of at least two possible answers 
3. Film a news report where you are trying to give the viewers all of the information but you keep running into questions! To make matters more confusing, the reporters don't agree on the answers to the questions. This would be done in two groups of 4, filmed in class with cutaways to side reporters, drawings, and wordle. I would then edit the material in imovie and produce it for the class to enjoy!