Etz Chaim Jewish Primary School

 

 

Shabbat UK

The children had a fantastic week celebrating Shabbat UK.  Tribe came in to deliver an engaging and interactive Shabbat show, where the children had the opportunity to become part of the performance.

 

The Shabbat UK Sing Off was a great success. Every class participated enthusiastically with great performances including actions. It was a close contest and a hard decision for the judges to pick the winners. Year 4 and Year 1 were delighted to win prizes for their classrooms.

 

Nursery enjoyed singing their Shabbat songs, including the Dinosaur song, which they very confidently performed at the Shabbat UK assembly. They also squeezed grapes to see how grape juice was made and compared this to a bottle of bought grape juice. The highlight was the beautiful challah that all the children made, kneaded, rolled out and enjoyed eating at the end of the week.

Where would Shabbat be without challah!! For Shabbat UK Reception investigated different challah recipes. Then they wrote their own recipe.  The children made their dough using their recipe and it was the best challah ever!!

Year 1 looked at Havdallah. They made their own basamim bags, the spices they created their bags from various spices being cinnamon, cloves or dried oranges. The children learnt the basamim bracha and they discovered which countries these different spices come from. 

Year 2 used "Shabbat Interactive" to play different Shabbat modules online. The children learnt about welcoming Shabbat, enjoying Shabbat and making Havdallah after Shabbat goes out. They also had a lot of fun decorating Challah cloths for Shabbat, this was part of a competition launched by Tribe.

Year 3 used the “Shabbat interactive” website. The children were required to order the Shabbat events according to their family tradition. They had to complete a Oneg pie by reading the clues that were given for each slice. They then had to slot the slices into the pie in the correct order, so that their Shabbat pie filled up. There were differences in the final pie, as we encouraged the children to complete the pie according to their own family’s traditions.

Year 4 looked more closely at the themes that are found in the Shabbat morning kiddush and learnt to say the kiddush. They also decorated challah covers with Shabbat symbols and phrases and learnt the zemer 'Yom Zeh l'Yisrael' which they sang with actions and in a round to win the ShabbatUK Sing-Off. Finally, they walked to Mathilda Marks Primary school where they were able to go into a Dome and have a 360 degree experience of Shabbat stories and dancing to Lecha Dodi which they all enjoyed tremendously.

In Year 5, were able to use their experience of Shabbat at their recent Shabbaton to extend their learning of the Friday night Kiddush and to review their knowledge of Shabbat. They decorated challah covers to use at their Shabbat tables at home and sang the beautiful Shabbat tehillah Tov lehodot L'Hashem as part of the ShabbatUK Sing-Off. The children enjoyed planning actions and singing in a round to add interest to their performance. They also reflected on how Shabbat felt different after their Shabbaton experience. 

 

Year 6 had to create their own board game that is suitable to play on Shabbat without breaking Shabbat. Learners select pictures for each part of Shabbat, together with the game aspects, like “Miss-a-turn”, “Move forward 3 squares” or “Go back 2 squares”, design their own tokens and print out the game to be cut out and pasted onto board ready to play on Shabbat afternoon. The class had a lot of fun using “Shabbat interactive” to create this game