By Yola Haber
The excitement and projects continue in Culture! This month we learned about Parsha Vayeshev, Miketz, Vayigash, and Vayechi. In Parshat Vayeshev, Yaakov gave his favorite son Yosef, the Ketonet Passim, a special jacket. We made edible Ketonet Passim out of graham crackers, frosting, and colorful sour belts! The students enjoyed making Yosef’s jacket while learning the story of the Shevatim.
Parshat Miketz fell out on Shabbos Chanukah so we had a special Chanukah lesson. We learned all about the Chanukah story with our very own Chanuka books. Every student decorated and put together pop-up dreidels. Additionally, we played Chanukah matching games and received donuts and gelt!
In honor of Parsha Vayigash, we made our very own harps. Serach bat Asher sang a special song to Yaakov telling him that his son Yosef was still alive after all these years. Each student made a harp out of paper plates, string, and dot-its. We sang “Yosef is alive, Yosef is alive…” altogether with our harps and watched a puppet show of Yaakov and Yosef reuniting.
In addition, we finished learning Sefer Beresheet! In Parshat Vayechi, the last Parsha in Sefer Bereshit, Yaakov blesses all his sons before he passes away. When he blessed Efraim and Menashe he switched his hands and put his right hand on the younger son and his left hand on the older son. Every student painted their hands and traced their hands on a piece of paper. Once the paint dried we cut the handprints out and put fasteners through the hands so that we can switch the hands around as Yaakov did.
The students did a great job completing the Parsha questions!