JKG Sunday 11.8.20

2nd Year B’nei Mitzvah: What Does it Mean to Become a Teenager?

Doing balancing yoga to demonstrate how hard it can be to be balanced in everyday life.
Thinking about different ways we are growing into teenagers.
Recognizing that moving from childhood to adolescence involves physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual growth.
Identifying that becoming a teenager and a Bar or Bat Mitzvah involves balancing between personal growth and receiving and giving support to others.

Discussing specific virtues of each patriarch and matriarch – like Abraham and Sarah’s hospitality and Rebecca’s kindness.
Creating our own “Chesed (Kindness) Challenge”, which we will use to keep track of the acts of kindness we perform this week.
Discussing the mistakes some of the patriarchs and matriarchs made, and brainstorming how we can recover from making mistakes of our own.
Identifying the family tree of the patriarchs and matriarchs, and comparing it to our own family trees.

Playing a challenging mind game to illustrate the trickery of the story of Leah and Rachel (Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah, then had to work for seven years to marry Rachel!)
Working with our classmate to put the story of Jacob and Esau back together again.
Creating illustrations of some mistakes we've made and how we worked to fix them.

Hearing the stories of Jacob and Esau switching birthrights, and the story of Rachel and Leah secretly switching spots on Rachel’s wedding night.
Connecting the stories to themes in our own lives – like conflicts with siblings or friends.
Discussing ways we can build strong connections with our siblings and family, and creating skits of do/don’t scenarios for how to treat each other.

How did the families in the stories today treat each other and how did it impact their relationships with each other?
How can we build strong connections with our family and friends?

Watching a video of the story of Adam and Eve, and discussing whether we think G-d’s punishment for Adam and Eve was fair.
Reviewing the days of Creation as a class by creating an interactive picture timeline.
Finding representations of each day with items from around our homes.

Reviewing the days of Creation with a catchy song, and coming up with a dance move for each day.
Reading a book together about the days of the Creation story.
Illustrating a day of Creation and playing group games to review the order of the days.

Imagining new creations and drawing them.
Hearing a song about the days of Creation and learning a fun dance to go along with it.
Playing “musical days of creation”, an interactive group game to review the story.

Jewish Kids GroupsNovember 8, 2020Comment