Kornmehl
Terry Aizen – Director of Kornmehl
Shabbat explorations and sharing
“Through our Jewish heritage children develop an awareness of the values of Mitzvot, Tzedakah and Tikun Olam” – Kornmehl Philosophy
Over the past week the Pre-school has been immersed in discussions about Shabbat, what Shabbat means and drawing visual representations of Shabbat symbols. We asked each child to draw a reflection of their Shabbat experiences or Shabbat feeling. Some Shabbat symbols and Shabbat photos in a slideshow were placed on the table to use as an inspiration and/or provocation to think and reflect on.
During the week, each group discussed how we cannot visit the old people in the Burger Centre and the Montefiore Home because of COVID-19. We also shared how sad we were that all our Kornmehl grandparents cannot come in to visit at the moment and especially for our annual Grandparent Days, which were meant to be this term.
Together, we discussed ways to share what we do at Kornmehl with these special elderly people in our community. We decided one of the ways was to each draw a special picture of Shabbat and write a special message to an older person. We also decided that we can still share our Shabbat with them, by videoing a Shabbat celebration on a Friday and sending the video link to our Grandparents, the Burger Centre and the Montefiore Home. So, on Friday, we all dressed in our special Shabbat clothes and sang, danced and did our Brachot.
We are very excited to share this video with special messages with our elderly community and hope that we can bring some joy and happiness into their day when they watch the video and receive the beautiful pictures.
A big thank you to Ben Marshall from the IT Department, who taped and edited the video.
Here are some of our discussions with the children:
Ethan: They need to light candles so they can have a Shabbat there on their own
Cleo: They need to stay home
Mili: You have to care about them
Isabella: They have to stay on their own
Abigail: They need to stay safe
Sam: The money box has the Star of David on it and it goes to Israel
Georgie: It’s a special time to have Shabbat
Finn: The best time of the year
Alice: It means it is a special time
Daniel: You put money for tzedakah.
How old is an old person?
Rafi: 138 years… no hang on five years old
Mika: 80 years old
Koben: 14
Talia: 81 years old
Max: 103
Zola: 100 years – that’s old
Kayla: 87 because my grandma is 87
Why can’t we go to visit the Burger Centre?
Kirra: Because of Corona
Rafi: It’s too bad to go
Phoebe: Someone will get sick
Kayla: If someone sneezed at the Burger Centre, someone can get sick if you don’t cover your mouth especially when they are older
What did you draw?
Ava: I did a Shabbat table. I love Shabbat with my family, and I love to go to Ariel’s house for Shabbat.
Jace: I did the Shabbat candles
Ethan: I made the candles and the tablecloth
Mili: I drew a tzedakah box
Jesse: Tzedakah goes to Israel to people that don’t have money
Abigail: I drew candles
Etta: I couldn’t draw challah, so I drew candles. But I like challah the best.
Levy: We have candles to light on Shabbat I drew them
Archie: I drew the wine because I like it and the juice too
Below is the message the children wanted to send to all the special elderly people with their drawings:
- We hope you feel really happy, because we feel really happy to share Shabbat with you
- We hope you have a lovely and wonderful Shabbat
- We hope you love our singing in the video. We loved singing songs for you.
- Shabbat is a special day – we hope Shabbat makes you feel happy
- On Shabbat you have a lovely time and you say prayers to Hashem
- We hope you are all okay and we miss seeing you
- Shabbat Shalom – have a special Shabbat
Music
Each week Music teacher, Elizabeth Birrell, comes down to Kornmehl to share her musical passion and talents with us. Miss Birrell’s music lessons are interactive, fun and engaging and the children look forward to these lessons each week.
This term during Music, the children have been focusing on the beat and rhythm, concepts of high and low, fast and slow, and lots of listening activities. We have learnt lots of new songs such as the Elevator song, Row row your boat, See you later Alligator, Bread and Butter, Marmalade and Jam to name but a few.
Miss Birrell’s lessons incorporate lots of movement, action dances and games and we use the parachute and a coloured rope. Musical percussion instruments such as mini chime bars are used, and the children are learning to play the notes ‘me’ and ‘so’.
The children are fully engaged in the lessons and we are very lucky to have Miss Birrell teach the Kornmehl children each week for Music.
