It's not babysitting

So what exactly are our children doing on the high holidays while the adults are in the main sanctuary? 

Over the years we have spent a lot of time considering what our children need to learn about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We mapped out the major themes and then created a spiral curriculum with learning objectives for each grade level. Many of these goals we return to year after year with increasing sophistication. For example, in Kindergarten we talk about how everyone makes mistakes,that we need to say we are sorry for the things we have done wrong and how Yom Kippur is the day we focus on this. In third grade we discuss how there is atonement between people and atonement between a person and God. And finally in fifth grade we take a look at examples of forgiveness in the Torah. 

We took these educational objectives and created engaging activities for our students. Finally, we pair these activities with an age appropriate service.  So when you pick up your child on the playground at the end of the service, engage them in a conversation about what they did that morning because it was not just babysitting. 

Personal Reflections

Personal Reflection Season

Looking for a new way to do some personal reflection this holiday season? Check out doyou10q.com

How It Works
Each day, from September 24th, a 10Q question will land in your inbox along with a link. When you click on the link, you will be taken to a private and personal space where you can answer the question. Your answer will be stored. The next day, you will receive another question and a link.

And so on, for ten days.

At the end of the ten days, you have a day or so post-Yom Kippur to reflect on your answers. With each question you will decide whether you are happy to share your answers with the 10Q editorial staff and the wider audience, either anonymously or attributed.
You will then be invited to hit the magic button and send your answers to a locked online vault.
Next year, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, your answers will magically appear in your inbox, full of revelations

Purim Carnival

The Purim Carnival is coming up in three weeks… but wait Purim is not until the middle of March. 

Have we completely confused you?  Purim this year is on Saturday night and Sunday, March 15^th & 16^th. We will have a great Purim program that Sunday morning complete with a performance by Circus Harmony! However, it does fall during spring break and many of our teenagers plan to be out of town. Since we pride ourselves on the fact that our teenagers plan and run almost our entire carnival, this year we decided to move the date of the carnival. But why Feb. 23^rd? During the month of Adar it is important to increase our happiness and joy as we lead up to Purim. This year there are two months of Adar, Adar I and Adar II, due to the leap year. So on Feb. 23^rd we will actually be having a Be Happy It’s Adar Carnival! There will be all your favorite Purim games, food, door prizes, music and even a raffle for a new car. 

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Be Happy It’s Adar Carnival on Feb. 23^rd at 11:30am. 

(We will have regular MKLC classes from 9am-11:30am)

Announing Our 1st Tzedakah Total!

One of my favorite Jewish stories is about an old man who was planting a carob tree one day.  A stranger walked by and asked the man, “Why do you bother to plan this carob tree?  It will take 70 years to grow and bear fruit, do you think you’ll live long enough to see that?”  The old man replies, “Perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren so they will be able to eat the fruit of these trees.” 

This old man realized he played an important role in the world, beyond the immediate he could see in front of him, even beyond what he would see in his lifetime.  At MKLC, we want to empower our students with this same feeling.

One step we’ve taken towards this goal is our new tzedakah program.  We split the year into 4 units. During each unit, the whole school learns about one organization and donates to that organization any tzedakah collected during those weeks.  We just wrapped up our first unit about Mazon: The Jewish Response to Hunger.  We are proud to announce that we raised $296 during this unit. 

Our next unit began this past Sunday and it is for Gateway 180 Homeless Services in St. Louis.  One goal of the tzedakah program is to help students realize the breadth of organizations that exist in our community and help them figure out their personal priorities among the various types. To this end, we chose organizations from 4 broad categories:

1. a national Jewish organization that serves both Jews and non-Jews

2.  a local non-Jewish organization that provides an important service the whole St. Louis area

3. an organization that provides support in Israel

4. a special project to help strengthen B’nai Amoona (our synagogue can only serve others with all these important tikkun olam projects if B’nai Amoona itself is financially stable and our members taken care of)

We look forward to exploring homelessness and the pressing issues facing the entire St. Louis community, Jewish and otherwise, with our students.  We hope during this process, our students will find a personal connection with one of these organizations (or another that speaks to them) and begin to plant their own “carob trees” that will leave a lasting legacy for the future of the Jewish community and St. Louis at large. 

Tfillot in the Learning Center

Tfillot is a significant part of our curriculum. We want our students to feel comfortable praying with our community. We believe that prayer is best experienced. Therefore, we offer several prayer experiences for our students. Each Sunday morning, K-2^nd grade and 3^rd -6^th grade join together for a community service. On Tuesdays, 6^th & 7^th grades gather for the afternoon service and conversations about what it means to have a prayer life. These services are led by Cantor Sharon and Rabbi Ari. We also strongly encourage frequent attendance at Shabbat morning services.

We also believe that our students need to the opportunity to learn about the meaning of the prayers. Each time we learn about a prayer in the classroom, we have the same four goals:

Students should be able to

1.     Understand the basic meaning of the prayer

2.     Read and sing the prayer

3.     Explain the place of the prayer in our liturgy

4.     Identify key root words

Here is a list of prayers that we focus on in each grade:

Kindergarten & First Grade              Modah Ani,  Mah Tovu, Oseh Shalom, Friday night Shabbat brachot, Four questions

2^nd Grade                                             Havdalah, Bracha over the study of Torah, Adon Olam, Shema & Va’ahavta

3^rd Grade                                              Brachot for holidays, Shabbat & Mitzvot, Birchot Hamazon (first paragraph), Four questions, Shema

4^th Grade                                               Bar’chu, Va’ahavta, Mi Chamochah, Amidah, Eyn Keloheinu, Yotzer Or

5^th Grade                                               Ein Kamocha, Av Harahamim, Kee Mitziyon, Barchot Hatorah, Barchot Hafaftorah, Aleinu, Kiddish, Prayer for the state of Israel

6^th Grade                                               Review of all previously learned tfillot, Ashrei          

Mitzvah Heroes

Planting Trees in St Louis City Parks

Parents getting into the Mitzvah Hero action

Building bears to donate to Give Kids a Smile Clinic

Mitzvah Heroes. That is what we call our 8th grade class. Each Sunday morning 22 students learn about how their actions can help make this world a better place. Then they get up, get moving and get working. Here are some of their recent projects.

World Wide Wrap

 Each year we partner with our Men's Club to participate in the World Wide Wrap. This year about forty of our 7th, 9th & 10th graders joined the Men's Club this past Sunday to wrap t'fillin and enjoyed a delicious brunch.

Men's Club members getting into the action

Making sure the fit is just right

All of our wrappers!

It was a great Tfillin refresher for many of our students. We had a parent come and wrap Tfillin for the first time and some of our 10th grader commented on what a nice connection to the community the morning was.

Hazzan Sharon helping our student wrap