January/February 2018

If you are looking to escape the cold winter air, just come down and feel the warmth and energy from our youngest community members in Keshet! It’s not just from the leftover Hanukkah candles either! The smiles, hugs, and enthusiasm creates immeasurable warmth! As we welcome in the new year, we are also welcoming two classrooms full of Pitzels! We have several new families joining Keshet for the first time and several siblings of current families joining us as well!

The past few months were certainly not short of excitement! We had Etrogs with Ima where moms and other special guests came and did a Sukkot activity, and Apples with Abba, where dads or other guests did a fall craft and story with their child. We also had our open house and First Annual Usborne Book Fair.

Special thanks goes out to all of our families and community members for purchasing books. Because of your purchases, Keshet gained $512 in books. This allowed all of our classrooms to get everything from their wish lists. The unique aspect of these books is that a tremendous amount of them are non-fiction and hands-on learning. Keshet will truly benefit from your support.

We are looking forward to Special Guest Night on February 8, which will include a pizza dinner, and marching around the synagogue for Purim on February 28 and March 1!

Our early childhood High Holy Day services and activities were engaging, meaningful, and fun. We celebrated two days of Sukkot with stations, a scavenger hunt, story walk, and Family Service along with the school-age families. For Simchat Torah, the children had their own space to do activities that included Lego Torahs, edible Torahs, and creating flags. Our second day focused on the concept of creation. Children did stations that explored G-d’s creations.

We had two engaging Tot Shabbat services that focused on the themes of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah respectively. Please join us on January 26 for Tot Shabbat and February 10 for PJ Havdalah.

We are going to be getting ready to open up registration for next year’s Keshet as well as Camp Keshet within the next month or so. For more information about Keshet or any Early Childhood programming, please stop by and see me or drop me an email at mwarner@tberochester.org.

Happy 2018!

B’Shalom,

Mandi Warner