Dear Parents,
Wow! We can’t believe it’s been 2 full months since our last newsletter! Adar Alef and Beis flew by, packed with activities, games and projects to reflect our Simchas HaChayim theme. In addition to exploring the definition and value of real happiness, our theme also included fostering empathy for others, helping others out, and the importance of kindness.
We started out the month with our “Smiling is Infectious” poem and had the kids decorate mirrors to attach to the poem. We began to plant the seeds in their minds of what happiness is really about and how to obtain it. We continued with this discussion throughout all of our activities and really drove the message of “Eizeh Hu Ashier Misameach Bichelko,” home. We were so fortunate to have Rabbi Ashi Newman come and speak to the boys, and share many stories and examples to illustrate this point. The boys were fascinated by the stories depicting the reality that wealth and materialistic possessions have no correlation to true happiness and actually often can be the cause of many problems.
In addition to learning about true Simcha, we took advantage of the double Adar this year with many super cool and fun projects! For our mishloach manos day, the kids each made three butterfly mishloach manos to bring home and give to people of their choice. We also had a decorating graggers contest and the most original one, won! We played the “Headbands” game, where each boy had a label on his forehead of something from the story of Purim, or that was relevant to the Yom Tov of Purim and had two minutes to ask questions to guess what his role was. Our masquerade party was a smashing success! The kids dressed up as many different things and enjoyed the festivities that we had set up for them.
A large part of our focus these past two months was fostering empathy and the importance of helping others when we can. We explored the concept of, “Torah, Avodah, and Gemilus Chasadim” to really understand how one of the ways the world survives is because of Chesed. We had each child write on a piece of paper a difficult situation that they experienced one time and put it in a bowl without his name on it. Then we passed around the bowl and they each picked one out and read the situation out loud, verbalizing how they think they would have felt should that have happened to them. Once everyone read one of the papers, the “author” of the situation spoke up and expressed how they felt, when this occurred to them.
As we concluded Adar, we dove headfirst into Nissan, taking advantage of the few sessions that we have this month, with our upcoming two-week break. Our theme for Nissan is strengthening ourselves as a Klal and developing and implementing effective communication and interpersonal skills. We broke out our theme with a simple game of broken telephone to illustrate how quickly things can get mixed up if not communicated clearly.
Enclosed, please find a calendar for the last two months of this year’s program. We will not be having Atideinu over the summer but will IYH send home a calendar for next year’s program at the end of the year.
One last thing – it’s already been two months since our last progress assessment! It will be time for another one shortly after Pesach. Please look out for it and send back by the due date. A HUGE thank you to all the parents who returned it on time in February.
It’s hard to believe that Pesach is so soon, and we will definitely miss our awesome Atideinu kids the next few weeks! We look forward to coming back and wrapping up the year strong when we get back in the swing of things on May 2nd, IYH. We wish you a chag kasher v’sameach and a great Pesach vacation.
Sincerely,
Chana Perel Handler
Director, Atideinu