Spiritua it)

Purim Fun

Hillel students transform themselves
into circus performers.

Above: Eighth-graders

Reva McDowell, 14, of
Huntington Woods, Sara

Weinfeld, 13, of Farmington
Hills, and Brian Langad,

13, of West Bloomfield

Right: Hillel students learn

to form a pyramid.

Students make their way across a tightrope.

I

Madeleine Gonte, Alex Sherman
and Sara Weinfeld
Teen2Teen Staff Writers

0

n March 3, during the week of
Purim, the students of Hillel Day
School of Metropolitan Detroit
participated in an extraordinary event.
Kids of all ages entered the school that
morning and walked by the gym to see the
challenging trapeze setups and many mats
spread out. In the hallway nearby, tight-
ropes were organized one after another.
Students were extremely excited because
today their Farmington Hills school would
be transformed into a circus and they
would be the performers!
After minyan, students put on stickers
with their names and a bar code; they
waited eagerly to be taken to their first cir-
cus activity. Group leaders (parent volun-
teers and teachers) searched around school
for the children in their group and picked
them up one by one. Once everyone was
settled, it was time to start what they've
been looking forward to all morning.

Hind's students participated in so many
fun-filled activities that day. All of their
activities were actual acts in a circus,
taught to them by members of Cirque
Amongus in Livonia.
At one station, they learned how to
balance and then walk on an 85-pound
wooden ball as well as a plastic barrel. At
another station, they learned step-by-step
to juggle rings, balls and pins. At a third
station, they learned how to walk on a
tightrope. Everyone got to go on a low-
wired beam and walk across. You could do
tricks on your second and third turn.
At another station, students learned
how to walk on stilts and, at yet another
station, they got to use a trapeze, doing
flips on the bar. There was even a station
where they played with clown bikes, such
as unicycles, small bikes, tandem bikes,
big-wheeled bikes and much more.
But that was not all, there were still other
stations where we did magic tricks, Chinese
yo-yos and balanced a plate on a stick.
After lunch, all students were sent to the
gym to decide which act they loved the

most. All 10 acts were called out individu-
ally. There was a limit to the number of
students per group, but everybody was
selected for at least one of their top three
choices. Then it was off to wardrobe and
makeup. Almost everybody had his or
her face painted and dressed up in wacky
clothing, just like a circus clown. There
was enough time for one final practice.
Everybody piled into the Blumenstein
gym and it was show time! The ringmas-
ter called out each act separately for the
audience to enjoy. The large spotlight and
loud music welcomed the performers onto
the stage. Some acts were performed indi-
vidually while others were performed in
pairs. We performed in front of the entire
school, acting goofy and showing off our
new skills. When the act was finished,
the crowd went wild. We think everyone
enjoyed participating in the circus. E

Sixth-grader Yonatan Weiss, 12, of

Madeleine Gonte, 14, of Bloomfield Hills, Sara

Weinfeld, 13, of Farmington Hills and Alex

Franklin and fifth-grader Tyler Presser,
10, of West Bloomfield

Sherman, 13, of Birmingham are eighth-graders

at Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit.

March 11 • 2010

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