Family program with Judaica artist Aimee Golant and more!

Shalom!
The year continues to fly by and we are having a great time in Omanut! Aimee Golant, the amazing metallurgist and Judaica artist came to our classroom at the end of February to instruct our students and their families in her specialty, working with metal, to demonstrate how we can make our own copper cuff bracelets and it was an incredible day filled with so many family members in our space!
We continue to work on kinetic art paintings based on the famed work of Yaacov Agam and I can't wait for you all to see the fruits of our labor in the Omanut Art Show at the end of the year.
I continue to be amazed by the thoughtfulness and creativity of your children and feel blessed that I get to see them and learn with and from them every week!
B'Shalom,
Heather

Here is a link to Aimee Golant's work, we were so fortunate to have her join us!
www.aimeegolant.com

Here are some pictures:

Ahava and tree rings of life to celebrate Tu B'Shevat

Shalom!

How can it be that we are over the half-way mark for our school year at JQuest?! Wow!
Over the past few weeks we have come together in Omanut to put a beautiful 'pop up' art installation on our Temple Isaiah campus-- and it turned out fabulous! Positioned over the outside of our beautiful amphitheater, Ahava ( translated to "Love" in Hebrew) is 6 and a half feet by 9 feet of bright acrylic tempered canvas and it really made a statement, even through all the downpours that we have had! Based on the famed "Love" by artist Robert Indiana (who designed the original Ahava from steel beams in Jerusalem!) we paid homage to this famous outdoor art installation and the Omanut students loved that if they travel to Israel, they could see it in person!

Robert Indiana's Ahava in Jerusalem, done in 1977:

Painting our Ahava:

The finished product! 

Considering it is almost Tu B'Shevat, our birthday of the trees, I designed a Tree Rings of Life project that the kids could do-- and it was very successful! Bright colors of the circles done in oil pastels and water colors, everyone added their own life experiences that were significant to them. Looking forward to putting them up in the hallway and showing the entire work when we have our end of the year Art Show. We are enjoying Yoga, Hebrew through Movement and Music with Eric during the week and Revital on the weekends. We are all very blessed to be able to come together, learn from one another and be the great community of friends that we are. Plant a tree or other wonderful things in honor of Tu B'Shevat- our future generations will thank you!
Until next time...
B'Shalom,
Heather

Here are some pictures from our latest  Hebrew Through Movement classes, learning about the fruits and trees of Israel in Hebrew...

A new year, and great things in store...

Shalom,
We are back and refreshed and ready after the Winter break holidays and subsequent extra week off last week and we are energized for the rest of the year and all of our projects to come!
Here are some pictures to bring you some smiles from our alternative material Menorah making for Hanukkah, and our wonderful large scale "Mi Chamocha diorama" ...
Omanut is  now gearing up for our next two surprise public art pop-ups and the chance to work with Teva and Bonim rebuilding our mosaic and tile wall in the garden, as well as the very fun "God shopping" activity where we all peruse different opinions and beliefs about God and create some amazing multi-dimensional art work in the theme of Yaacov Agam. Good stuff happening for all of us, and i'm excited to think about all that we will show at the end of the Year Art Show! Parent Program with metal and wire artist coming next month, too, so keep your eyes peeled! For now, though, we will complete our project on the Ten Commandments which will be made into a book to take home in June. Your children are inspiring!
B'Shalom,
Heather

In case you missed it, our Exodus diorama depicting Mi Chamocha! 

Hebrew Through Movement fun with Tammy and Yardena

Making alternative material Menorahs for Hanukkah

Music with Eric! 

Who created the best Exodus multi-dimensional large scale diorama? Omanut!

Shalom,

We have so many things to be grateful for this season-- hope that your Thanksgiving break vacation time was wonderful! We managed to finish the Mi Chamocha diorama that takes over 4 tables (!) just before we left for the holiday break. We will be doing some writing and putting dialogue to our large diorama - which is quite impressive, if I do say so myself-- but you have to see it to believe it!

The Omanut students want to make a little video to show along side our finished piece, and we will spend a bit of time to record them as the characters that they made from clay and other mediums to show during the video montage at the end of the year during our Omanut Art Show.

We have had peaceful Nechama Yoga with Miss Kendra, fun and energizing Music time with our new weekday song leader, Eric , and well as continuing to move and groove while learning Ivrit- Hebrew Through Movement!- with the awesome duo of Tammy and Yardena.
Looking forward to Hanukkah and Bring-a-Friend Day later this month...
Keep being creative! We sure will!
B'shalom,
Heather

One of the videos that we watched from BimBam.com served as a great inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKp6y2Lpgxg



*I've attempted to upload a large series of pictures for 2+ hours now,  unfortunately my computer is not cooperating! Because I want you all to be as caught up as possible, i've decided to publish this now; I will add photos of the amazing Omanut students working hard from start to finish on our diorama as soon as I can access my pictures to do so!*

Exodus Multi-media Project

Shalom!

 

It was a beautiful day to start working on our project centering around Exodus yesterday! During our discussion we broke up into small groups and decided who would work on which part of our large- but small scale!- representation of our ancestors escaping from Egypt after the plagues to head to the promised land of Israel through the desert. "Mi Chamocha" is a very special part of our Tefillah time and we will be incorporating that part of Torah into our piece as well. 

Everyone has been listening to each other and sharing ideas for the mixed media that we will be using and, if we are able, several students want to do a video for us to share- stop motion style! If any parents are adept at stop motion effects with lego, clay and lots of paint and paper, please let me know! We'd love for you to join us when our project is complete in a couple of weeks. 😀

We watched this video yesterday about Nachshon and this should give you a little peek into what we will be doing! 

http://www.g-dcast.com/nachshon/

Thanks so much for your support and for raising such great kids who make my days at JQuest so awesome and fulfilling as an educator! I love being their teacher! 

See you soon,

Heather