This fall JAWC students undertook two Mitzvah projects. The first project was a canned food drive for Jewish Family Services. First they each brought in non-perishable food from home. They counted the classroom tzedakah and took a portion of the money to Kroger, where they each chose two additional non-perishable items. Taking the children to Kroger on Thanksgiving week to buy food for families that need some help is becoming a tradition at JAWC, as this is the second year they have done this. Shopping for basic items to give to people in need reinforces to the children that they have much to be thankful for, and that something as basic food is not to be taken for granted. The kids love doing the self check-out. In the end three boxes of food were given to Jewish Family Services.
For the second Mitzvah project, right before winter break, the students packed and shipped boxes filled with hygiene products, snacks, and candy to deployed servicemen. Their teacher, Erin Scoggins, has a brother serving in Afghanistan who advised her on the items the soldiers need. Some of the students gave names and addresses of people in the military that they know. Our next door neighbor is a Chaplain in Iraq so a package was sent to him. S. and her family had spent Shabbat with a Rabbi and his family at Camp Legune so she felt connected to this mitzvah project, having spent a weekend with military families and soldiers on a base. In addition to needed items, each box contained a class photo, with all of the children dressed in red, white and blue, in front of the American and Israeli flags. Some of the children wrote notes to the soldiers. Even though the packages will arrive well after the holidays, as the holidays were fresh on the kid’s minds, I did see “Happy Hanukkah, I love you” written on one card and heard some discussion between the kids on whether or not it makes sense to write “Merry Christmas” on another. Eleven boxes were sent.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
JAWC Hosts Jewish Children’s Book Author Dina Rosenfeld
This is the full version of the article I'm writing for the Raleigh/Cary Jewish Federation's paper. The paper's version will be much shorter.
It was a cold and snowy day, the first day of winter vacation, yet the Jewish Academy of Wake County was warm and full of happy children. Dina Rosenfeld, author of many Jewish Children’s books, was sitting in a little green chair, teaching an enwrapped audience of twenty children and many adults how to write a children’s book.
She used as an example her book “Peanut Butter and Jelly for Shabbos”. It started on a sheet of yellow lined paper that is covered with sentences and paragraphs all written in different directions, generated through brainstorming. One sentence was circled, the idea behind “Peanut Butter and Jelly for Shabbos.” She then showed the editing process, where the story is refined from a handwritten pages with many corrections to a typed pages with corrections to a finished story that is then put into an envelope and sent to the illustrator. Rosenfeld says “In a picture book, if you talk about something you have to show it.” She showed the illustrator’s process from pencil drawings to full color images and the changes they made along the way to clarify the message of the illustrations. She showed the finished book in its hard cardboard binding.
Next she showed two books in their original form that she had illustrated herself, and how professional illustrators and book designers had continued her work. In one example, the illustrator did something completely different than what she had originally drawn. She said that it’s interesting how two people can interpret a story in two completely different ways. She then showed an original layout of a book where she had created collages of colored paper for the illustrations. In that example the illustrator had used her illustrations as the inspiration for his paintings.
Mrs. Rosenfeld also held up the book “A Kind Hearted Rivka”, translated into many languages, and read the title in all of the different languages. She showed them the same book in Braille, and explained how the Jewish Heritage for the Blind prints books in Braille so that blind adults can read stories to the children in their lives.
The final message of the story “Peanut Butter for Shabbos” is “You’ll only succeed if you’re willing to try.” The children at JAWC had made their own books during the last few weeks, each one fully illustrated with a cover and a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The childen were very proud to share their books with Dina Rosenfeld who said “Everyone can be an artist and make up stories.”
It was a cold and snowy day, the first day of winter vacation, yet the Jewish Academy of Wake County was warm and full of happy children. Dina Rosenfeld, author of many Jewish Children’s books, was sitting in a little green chair, teaching an enwrapped audience of twenty children and many adults how to write a children’s book.
She used as an example her book “Peanut Butter and Jelly for Shabbos”. It started on a sheet of yellow lined paper that is covered with sentences and paragraphs all written in different directions, generated through brainstorming. One sentence was circled, the idea behind “Peanut Butter and Jelly for Shabbos.” She then showed the editing process, where the story is refined from a handwritten pages with many corrections to a typed pages with corrections to a finished story that is then put into an envelope and sent to the illustrator. Rosenfeld says “In a picture book, if you talk about something you have to show it.” She showed the illustrator’s process from pencil drawings to full color images and the changes they made along the way to clarify the message of the illustrations. She showed the finished book in its hard cardboard binding.
Next she showed two books in their original form that she had illustrated herself, and how professional illustrators and book designers had continued her work. In one example, the illustrator did something completely different than what she had originally drawn. She said that it’s interesting how two people can interpret a story in two completely different ways. She then showed an original layout of a book where she had created collages of colored paper for the illustrations. In that example the illustrator had used her illustrations as the inspiration for his paintings.
Mrs. Rosenfeld also held up the book “A Kind Hearted Rivka”, translated into many languages, and read the title in all of the different languages. She showed them the same book in Braille, and explained how the Jewish Heritage for the Blind prints books in Braille so that blind adults can read stories to the children in their lives.
The final message of the story “Peanut Butter for Shabbos” is “You’ll only succeed if you’re willing to try.” The children at JAWC had made their own books during the last few weeks, each one fully illustrated with a cover and a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The childen were very proud to share their books with Dina Rosenfeld who said “Everyone can be an artist and make up stories.”
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