Preschool Workshop
Attracts 200 Educators
JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR STAFF WRITER
theme of the conference was:
fit "What Is Jewish About Thurs-
§, day?"
t "What we have been trying to
do is to give the teachers ways to
8 make the contents of their days
a little
li more Jewish," said Shawn
Locke, director of school services
for the Agency of Jewish Educa-
tion.
"You don't have to wait for a
holiday to do something Jewish,"
she said. "You can do something
every day."
Thursday began with a text
study with Rabbi Joshua Bennett
of Temple Israel. Dressed as Ja-
cob, Rabbi Bennett spoke of the
opening prayer of the morning
service, the Ma'tovu, and how it
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Above left: Missy Leslie, center,
dances to the music of Janet
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earing a yellow plastic
hat decorated with
brightly colored feath-
ers and beads, Julia
Greenblatt began firing away
from her stockpile of teaching
tools for preschool teachers.
In the space of an hour she had
unloaded about 100 ideas
on the participants in her
workshop during the sec-
ond Early Childhood Edu-
cators Conference. All of the
suggestions gave at least
one way of adding a little
Jewish content into each
day.
"Let your imagination go
wild. You can make any-
thing Jewish," she said as
she gestured to the hat
which represented ways to
bring Jewish thought about
birds into the classroom.
Ms. Greenblatt's seminar
about using Jewish fairy tales
was one of 16 presented to over
200 nursery-school teachers and
day-care workers who attended
the daylong conference held at
Temple Israel on March 9. The
related to bringing the children
into a Jewish environment.
The teachers later split into the
first round of workshops which
ranged in subject from adding
music to a lesson to teaching Jew-
ish ideas about life on a farm. Af-
ter lunch, another set of classes
were held.
Last year, a similar conference
was held after the normal school
day at the Agency for Jewish Ed-
ucation. Then, five classes were
offered at one time.
"Last year when I went I was
tired after working during the
day. There was a big snowstorm.
It was hard to do," said Adrienne
Gersten, a teacher at Temple
Emanu-El's nursery school.
This year, directors of many
area Jewish day-eRre centers and
nursery schools decided to close
the facilities for the day to pro-
vide the in-service to their teach-
ers.
"They thought it was impor-
tant enough to say we need a day
to concentrate on Judaica for our
teachers," Ms. Locke said. "That
says something about the need
for this."