Adat Shalom Religious School
September/October 2011
Sukkot comes to Adat Shalom
Religious School
Religious School students in all grades started
planning for their Sukkot celebration early in
October, following their study and observance of
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
After decorating the sukkah, students joined their
teachers and parents for a hotdog luncheon in the
social hall served by Teaching Assistants
Kindergarteners and first graders proudly pose before
their Sukkot bulletin board. With their teaching assistant
Cassie Wolff are Liviya Rubin, Alex Kronman, Daniel Uhl,
Zachary Friedberg, Jacob Friedberg and Andrew Wagner.
Dylan Stein, Emma Wecht and Anna Stebbins
display their hand-made sukkah decorations.
At the beginning of October students and teachers
worked with Art Specialist Sharon Serbin and
Sukkah Manager (new title!) Donni Roth to make
decorations using old plastic CD covers and CDs,
rain-resistant glue, stained glass pieces and other
materials. On Family Sukkah Decorating Day all
the classes visited the sukkah to hang their
decorations, creating a roof that glistened with
light-reflecting pieces along with many decorations
by students from previous years.
October was Kindergarten and First Grade’s turn to
decorate the Religious School bulletin board.
Appropriately, they chose Sukkot as their theme
and made a colorful presentation reflecting all the
elements that make this holiday special. Many
thanks to all the teachers, students and parents
who helped to make this day a great success.
NOTE: Religious School is closed on Sunday,
November 6 and Sunday, November 27.
New Teachers welcomed to
Religious School Faculty
Debby Adamo is our new 1st grade
teacher. She taught 7th grade
reading at Dorseyville Middle
School for nine years before
taking her current job as a 4th and
5th grade Title I reading teacher at
the PA Virtual Charter School.
Fran Conway
Erica Yablonsky-Gibbons
Joining the ranks of our 7th grade
Religious School teachers is Fran
Conway who, on Sundays, teaches
Hebrew prayers, grammar and
vocabulary along with the Life
Cycle events of the Jewish people.
Fran has taught in other
congregations for many years,
most recently at Rodef Shalom.
She works for Huntington Bank as
a team leader.
On Tuesdays Erica YablonskyGibbons teaches 3rd and 4th grade
Judaica studies. She is a
substitute teacher in the
Pittsburgh Public School System
and regularly substitutes at Adat
Shalom on all grade levels. A
relative newcomer to Pittsburgh
from New York, Erica is already an
avid Penguins fan.
Debby Adamo
As Adat Shalom’s 1st grade
teacher, Debby plans to actively
engage her class in learning the
Hebrew alphabet and more about
the Jewish holidays.
What’s Going On:
Class by Class
Our Kindergarten class kicked off the year learning
about all Fall holidays, enhanced with art
projects and musical activities. They’ve also worked
hard on their Hebrew letters and love to read Sammy
Spider.
First graders are reviewing the Hebrew letters they
learned last year, starting with emphasis on the first half
of the Hebrew alphabet. In addition to studying the Fall
Jewish holidays, they are working on their posters for
their Squirrel Hill Food Pantry tzedakah project which is
scheduled for November.
Our second graders are working hard on beginning to
read Hebrew! While reviewing all the Hebrew letters
they learned in Kindergarten and 1st grades, they will
regularly review every Hebrew letter name. As they
learn to pronounce the Hebrew letters, they also will
learn vowel sounds. The holidays also kept this class
very busy.
In addition to their regular holiday studies, this year third
and fourth grade Tuesday students created Rosh
Hashanah greeting cards for the residents of Weinberg
Terrace, an assisted living facility in Squirrel Hill. They
have also been studying Hebrew vocabulary and prayers.
Class by Class (cont.)
.
On Sundays fourth graders have been studying the
biblical origins and customs of Rosh Hashanah,
Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah. The
students engaged in a private, personal reflection
on their behavior during the past year, positive
behavior they should continue and ways they can
be better people in the new year.
Sunday fifth and sixth graders are enjoying an
approach to study which Adat Shalom
incorporated beginning last year: The Chai
Curriculum, a self-contained, complete curriculum
that builds on the Talmudic saying of Simon the
Just from the Ethics of our Fathers, “The world is
based on three things: Torah, worship and deeds of
lovingkindness.” The students study the prophets
(technically not in the Torah but in the larger
context of “Torah,” which includes prophets and
psalms); the amidah, the central part of every
Jewish prayer service; and the responsibility to
take care of God’s creation, to be ecologically
concerned, as part of performing deeds of
lovingkindness.
These students continue to make excellent
progress as they develop three important Hebrew
language skills: reading, writing and vocabulary.
Marjie Schermer with her 4th graders and Sierra Serbin
with her 3rd graders visited the sukkah and shook the
lulav and etrog while reciting prayers.
While seventh graders study Hebrew and Judiaca
throughout the week, on Tuesdays they also study
the Holocaust. At the beginning stage of this
curriculum they discuss bullying and tolerance, and
more specifically, the role of the bystander. They
talk about the ways situations can change
dramatically when the bystander speaks out
instead of looking on silently or walking away.
With this approach leading into their Holocaust
studies, the members of the class are working
“hands-on” outside of Religious School,
performing “random acts of kindness” at school,
at home and in their communities.