Our Curriculum - Congregation Rodeph Sholom

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Religious School Curriculum Overview

Learning is a full family endeavor at Congregation Rodeph Sholom Religious School designed to combine the passion and expertise of our teachers with our welcoming community. With family programs during our school year and having families join their students at morning minyan, it is our goal to bring Judaism to life for every member of the house.

Our amazing staff works hard to create an environment of engaging, interactive learning for our students. As a team, our Director of Education works with our faculty in following the Behrman House Publishers and Torah Aura Productions curriculum which brings Judaism to life in ways that foster our students towards making informed Jewish decisions as they continue to grow.

Our curriculum content areas include:

Bible/Torah

The following are the overall goals of the Bible curriculum at RS:

To learn that the Torah is the foundation of Judaism and the basic guide for proper behavior, ethics, and morality;
To become knowledgeable about the content of the Torah, the lives of our forefathers and foremothers, the traditional history of our religion, and the laws of our people;
To be guided by the laws and values of the Torah in our everyday lives;
To use the study of Torah as a foundation for further study of classical texts.

Hebrew

The following are the overall goals of the Hebrew language curriculum at RS:

To enable students to recognize Hebrew as the eternal and universal language of the Jewish people;
To develop in students a love of the Hebrew language and an appreciation of Hebrew as a vehicle of expressing the soul of our people.
To give students the opportunity to participate in a supportive atmosphere that encourages risk taking in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Hebrew;
To develop in students the Biblical Hebrew skills to study and interpret the texts;
To provide students with prayer skills in order to become a bar or bat mitzvah.

Holidays and Customs

The following are the overall goals of the Holidays and Customs curriculum at RS:

To make students knowledgeable about the yearly cycle of Jewish holidays, including the Jewish calendar, dates of holidays, and relationships of holidays with one another;
To familiarize students with the origin and background of Jewish holidays; to make students knowledgeable about the laws and customs associated with each holiday;
To teach students the connections between the Bible and the holidays;
To teach the specific blessings and prayers for each holiday;
To compare modern day observances with those of other time periods;
To develop in students a holiday spirit and to create special school-wide or class observances and celebrations;
To develop in students a sense of pride in peoplehood, religion and tradition.

Tefillah (Prayer)

The following are the overall goals of the Tefillah curriculum at RS:

To learn to read and recite the prayers correctly;
To learn the melodies of the prayers;
To learn the meanings of the various prayers;
To learn about the various services;
To learn the order of the prayers in each service;
To learn how to participate in a service;
To become inspired to make prayer a daily part of our lives;
To use these skills to conduct services at the students' Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremonies;
To learn to relate to Jews all over the world through their knowledge of the same prayers
Lifelong davening.

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Pre-K and Kindergarten

At Rodeph, we welcome students as young as 2 years old, as long as they are potty trained, for a combined PreK/Kindergarten classes where our students explore introductions to Judaism and Hebrew. They learn the letters, vowels, colors, family members, basic counting, and so much more though hands-on activities (e.g. baking Hebrew letter cookies), Hebrew letter tracing, and interactive videos.

1st & 2nd Grade

Our combined 1st & 2nd grade class focuses on building on the foundation learned last year, while exploring your child's natural creativity through art projects, music, and beginning to develop a deeper connection to the Synagogue and our local Jewish Community and lay the foundation for their future learning.

3rd through 8th Grade

As we begin to prepare our students for their journey towards Jewish adulthood, we focus on more than preparation for their B'nei Mitzvah ceremony, but on creating well-rounded Jewish students. Students will learn the deeper meaning of prayers, Jewish values and they relate to their everyday choices, experience being part of the larger organized Jewish community, and connect to our past through Jewish History, life cycle events, Israel, and our people. They will engage with Hebrew as a living language through music, poetry, and stories, as well as liturgy.

Our students begin each day by reporting to their "homeroom teacher" and then, as a Rodeph community, join in our family-oriented Sunday morning minyan with our Congregation and Rabbi. Our goal is to have our students side by side with our congregants leading our service, which is not just a great experience being on the bima for their upcoming service, but bridges the generations through prayer and singing.

Prayer Goals by Grade K-8th Grade

Prayer Goals by Grade	Pre K	K	1	2	3	4	5	6	7 & 8
Recites prayers correctly	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Recites appropriate blessings	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Leads prayer service			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Comprehends basic prayer concepts			*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Masters basic Torah reading skills								*	*
Is able to understand and lead services to becoming a b'nai mitzvah									*

The Rodeph Sholom Religious School operates using a spiral curriculum. This means that students review certain topics, like Jewish holidays or Hebrew, throughout their time in our program. Each year, teachers work to reinforce previous learning, while increasing the depth and complexity of material covered. This allows students to build a solid foundation in Jewish learning, while continuing to improve their knowledge and skill set as they advance through our program. The emphasis of our program is on inquiry, teaching students to ask questions to help them find their own Jewish ideas and identity. We believe that teaching doesn't necessarily involve providing all of the answers. Rather, our hope is that we provide a foundation so that when students have questions in life, they will turn to Judaism for the answers.

Pre-Gan (Preschool) 2-4 years old

Students are introduced to:

Jewish holidays (with a focus on Shabbat)
Torah
Music
Hebrew letter recognition

Focus will be on exposure to Jewish life and fostering a love of Judaism.

Text: Letter Hunt, Hebrew

A Child's Garden of Torah, Judaics

Gan (Kindergarten)

Students are introduced to:

Hebrew language and reading
Jewish values
Torah stories and their relevance to our modern lives
The Holiday cycle and Shabbat
The idea of Tikkun Olam, the Jewish commitment to repairing the world.

Text: Let's write Aleph Bet - Cursive, and Shalom Alef Bet, Hebrew

My Weekly Sidrah, Judaics

Kitah Aleph (First Grade)

Students are introduced to:

The big picture of Torah specifically in Genesis and Exodus
Mitzvot (commandments) connected to holidays and daily life
Hebrew letter and vowel recognition and decoding
How to write block Hebrew letters
Counting in Hebrew

Texts: Let's write Aleph Bet - Cursive, and Shalom Alef Bet, Hebrew

My Weekly Sidrah, Judaics

Kitah Bet (Second Grade)

Students are introduced to:

The Jewish community and their role within it
Jewish holiday celebrations
Jewish symbols
Israel as the Jewish homeland
The weekly Parsha (Torah portion)
Brachot (prayers)

Texts: Shalom Alef Bet, My Weekly Sidrah

Kitah Gimmel (Third Grade)