Schechter Shavua: December 23, 2022

Nevatim Brings Ancient Egypt to Life

Nevatim'shistory class (grades 5-6) has spent several weeks in Ancient Egypt learning about the Old Kingdom pyramid builders, the height of the Egyptian Empire in the New Kingdom, and the development of one of the world's first written languages (hieroglyphics). They worked in small groups to study a New Kingdom pharaoh that contributed greatly to Egyptian society at the time. Students then created a presentation to teach their classmates about their chosen pharaoh. They learned how the Rosetta Stone's decoding unlocked Ancient Egypt to historians and enabled them to read hieroglyphics. Nevatim also watched a video about how linguists used the modern Coptic language, which descends from early Egyptian, to figure out what Ancient Egyptian language sounded like.

For the final assessment of their unit, students chose a location important to the Ancient Egyptians - such as temples, burial sites, and cities - and created a travel brochure to teach their classmates about their beautiful site and entice them to book a trip there!

Schechter Drama Club Dishes Out a Delicious Performance

For the past four months, the students attending Schechter’s after-school drama club have been immersed in a sweet and magical world - the delicious world of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"! Music teacher Rachel Rosenfeld (aka Ms. Rose) led students through the process of collaborative drama games and warm-ups, auditions, part allocation and intensive rehearsal. These performers - in grades 2 through 7 - mastered stagecraft, line-learning, teamwork and the importance of listening to each other on stage. The result was truly spectacular as the cast led us through a world of 'Pure Imagination' that was funny, dramatic, and truly heart-warming. Huge congratulations to the entire cast and crew! Kol hakavod to Reva, Tali, Nathan, Bela, Caleb, Rami B, Rivkah, Asher, Ivri, Iris, Zoe, Alex, Ms. Rose, and our fabulous tech crew, Rami T and Milo.

See photos of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory HERE

Special Friday Mornings in Middle School

If you’re a regular at Friday morning RELISH, you might notice that once in a while our middle school students have alternative programming. Recognizing that sometimes teens and pre-teens might like to be bonding on their own, our middle school faculty have planned a series of fun and educational hands-on activities for our middle schoolers approximately once a month as an alternative to the schoolwide RELISH.

Recently, students delved into some of the culinary favorites of Israel with Hebrew teachers Ruth and Renana Ben Porat. They learned about the origin and preparation of Israeli pita, hummus and salad.

To put things into context, students discussed and listened to the Israeli song " הזורעים בדמעה ברינה יקצרו" (Hazorim bedimah berinah yiktzeroo), which expresses that although the work of growing and harvesting food is hard, it can also cause great joy.

Seventh graders prepared the dough for pita bread in advance and learned about the ingredients in Hebrew. The following day, students divided into three groups; each group prepared a portion of their meal. After our chefs shaped and baked pitot , chopped cucumbers and tomatoes for salad, and whirled up food processors full of hummus, they all sat together and enjoyed the food. Yofi!

Click HERE to see photos of Israeli cooking

Lots of... singing, dancing, and joy!

Schechter’s annual Latkes and RELISH celebration represents all our favorite things about Chanukah: singing, dancing, latkes, sufganiyot, and total joy in celebrating with a BIG extended Schechter family. Todah Rabah to Jason Kay and Jamie Debicella for leading our crowd with enthusiasm, especially in the Lots of Latkes round ! And this year we’ve introduced a new tradition: a group of a capella singers from the faculty and staff. Watch them HERE. Happy Chanukah!