Ideas for kodesh pull-out enrichment for third grade

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amother

OP ↓

Yesterday at 10:25 am

I'm not a teacher, I'm a mother, but I need advice from teachers, so I hope it's okay that I'm posting in this forum.

Some of my kids are BH very bright and get bored easily in class, depending on the teacher and the grade level. In the past, they have mostly been bored in secular classes, and the school (who is amazingly flexible and willing to work with parents) has provided them with pull-out enrichment classes in order to help. These classes are "only" once or a twice a week, for a group of 5-8 kids (who are in a similar boat), but they've gone a long way towards making these kids feel challenged and giving them something to look forward to. I even volunteered to do this for one of my children who needed more, so that they'd have an extra pull-out class.

I now have a daughter in third grade who is also very bored, but mostly in her kodesh class, to the point that she's getting very frustrated. I'd like to volunteer to do a pull-out in the morning, but they said they cannot do a secular enrichment pull-out in the morning, only in the afternoon.

The thing is, I can't figure out what to teach them. It's easy to find math or writing enrichment online. It's not quite as easy to find ideas for kodesh. I do NOT want to teach them skills (Hebrew language), or things that they'll learn later on in school (like how to read meforshim) because that will just make them more bored in the future. It doesn't even need to be intellectual per se--as long as it's making them problem solve, think outside the box, etc., it's serving the purpose.

Most importantly, it should be something that the girls will enjoy, and that will work for a small group. It needs to not feel like something they'd learn in a regular class. It needs to have some amount of structure, but it can project-based as long as it gives them enough guidance so that they're not overwhelmed or lost.

Are there any ready-made programs out there that would work for this? For an older grade, I would teach something about hashkafa, or tefillah, but I think that's too advanced for this age and not something that they would view as fun and interesting. Maybe something about middos? With stories to read and projects to do based on what they've learned? I don't have the time to develop anything from scratch, nor the money to buy a whole curriculum (I'm already using my work hours to make this happen). Any ideas would be welcome...

amother

Peach

Yesterday at 10:32 am

4th grade Morah here.
First of all, ask her teacher for recommendations. Every school has different curriculums etc.
Aside from that, I would choose a topic to learn that they won’t be doing in school for at least a few years (so that if she does re-learn it it will be on a higher level so it will be different). Think a higher/deeper focus on Parsha, Pirkei Avos, an English book like All For The Boss, typing in Hebrew…
If you want curriculum type of things look on Chinuch.org. If they don’t let you without a teacher account email them.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 11:55 am

Thanks! I've been looking through chinuch.org but am having a hard time sifting through it all and finding what I'm looking for.

It really needs to be something that gets kids excited and makes them think on a deeper level. The materials I've found fall short of them. They talk to the kids about ideas, maybe have them write about how they can apply it to themselves, but that's it. That's great for typical education, or a schoolwide program, but I'm looking for something that will really catch the interest of these gifted (or at least very bright) kids, and not just feel like more "school" to them.

I'd love to hear if anyone has done something like this before, or if they have an idea that's more out of the box. I can try to create a whole program from scratch, and if this were my job I might end up doing it. But especially since I'm volunteering, and this would be taking time away from my work hours (I get paid hourly), I'm really hoping I can find something ready-made that I can build on so I don't have to re-invent the wheel.

amother

DarkOrange

Yesterday at 12:01 pm

Check this pinned thread. It has a lot of helpful links.
https://www.imamother.com/foru.....85619

Possibly using TorahLive with their worksheets?

dena613 ↓

Yesterday at 12:09 pm

Could you point out dikduk rashis and teach concepts in dikduk?
The rashi in this past week's parsha, on gad gedud yegudenu, was fascinating!
Double osiyos...

↑ dena613

Yesterday at 12:11 pm

In most girls schools they introduce rashi in third gradeq.
If the school has already introduced rashi script, then they only do minimal rashis. One or two a perek.
Can you teach a few that the morah won't cover?

Hashem_Yaazor ↓

Yesterday at 12:13 pm

Dan lekaf zechus stories?
Read them a scenario and have them give thoughts how you can judge favorably
Middos and creative thinking in one

After they get the hang of it, switch it up...
Have them then create their own stories and present them to the rest of the group for them to guess

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 1:40 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Ooh, this is a fantastic idea! You're right, that it won't work long term, but honestly at this point if I could get a couple of other ideas like this, that would be enough to start with.

Hashem Yaazor, I always love your posts. Do you have any other good ideas? You really got what I was asking for...

Or does anyone else?

↑ Hashem_Yaazor ↓

Yesterday at 2:27 pm

They can do a research project on a Torah role model, there are a few young reader biographies out there. That will take time to read, maybe make a trifold, present. You'll be guiding vs preparing... Probably you should create a rubric of what they should include in their project but other than that, it's helping them during the pull out session. Depending on how many girls there are, maybe they can do it in partners.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 5:32 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Thank you so much! I might take a look at the school library to see which books they can use, not sure if it would be a biography or something else, it'll depend on what they have. But this is really a great idea that can be built on in so many ways...

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 7:58 pm

Bumping for teachers that weren't able to respond this morning. (I wasn't thinking about timing.) Any ideas would be so helpful and appreciated!

esther7

Yesterday at 10:50 pm

How about learning rashis with them from parshas that they already learnt, before they started learning rashis? bereishis and noach
Or you can do something on megilas Esther, between now and purim. you can probably find something on chinuch.org for that.

oohlala

Yesterday at 10:59 pm

I’m personally not into pull out enrichment (as an educator), but you can never go wrong with beur tefila. Of all the subjects, it’s the one thing the girls will need long term and there are so many tefillos to choose from. You can come up with a creative project as a culminating activity.

amother

↑ OP

Today at 10:30 am

oohlala wrote:

Thank you all for these ideas!

oohlala, what would you suggest instead, for these kids? Talking about kids who are light years ahead of their peers, reading middle grade books in second grade, doing multiplication in their heads when their peers are still learning addition.

I intentionally don't push my kids, I try my hardest not to teach them things they're going to learn in a later grade. So for example, I got one of my kids into geography, he could tell you the names and capitals of almost every country in the world and most of their flags, and plenty about each of them...in first grade. This was because I was trying not to let him rush ahead in math and reading but he needed something intellectually challenging.

But classtime itself is torture for these kids. They are forced to read phonics books with four words on a page when they're reading chapter books written a hundred years ago (in other words, not the dumbed-down ones, books like "Five Little Peppers and How They Grew"). I find that if they are not stimulated at all throughout the school day, they can take one of a couple of paths. Some kids end up having major behavior problems because they're so bored. Some kids end up looking like model students in school but explode when they come home because they're so frustrated from being forced to review the basics all day long, over and over. And some just become withdrawn and quiet and passive, sometimes grumpy. None are ideal.

I didn't have these pull-outs for my older kids, but I definitely see their positive impact on my current kids, who are in a school that does have them. Is there any alternative way to stimulate them during the school day? I'm really curious, open to other ideas, as I'd rather not cut my work time short like this and shlep to their school to do these things.

↑ Hashem_Yaazor

Today at 10:51 am

I'm curious why pull out isn't good.

Two of my kids were blessed with a pull out program available to them once a week and it filled them up so much, helped provide stimulation that carried with them past the 45 minutes or whatever, gave them something tangible to be proud of (they did research projects on national parks, sites in DC, etc by writing letters to the national attraction, reading books, putting together a whole portfolio in a binder about them). They didn't have to sit in class below their level during that time and didn't end up learning material that would be covered in school later on. This was in 1st-3rd grade.

I know myself and at least one of my kids would keep ourselves stimulated later on in middle school/high school by looking on our own at meforshim not being covered, figuring out ask the baal haturim gematrias, etc but that's not something a third grader can do on her own.

And a pull out to me is better than what one of my kids did which was take a calculator and hit the random button and track the numbers he received. That didn't stimulate him or give him any further knowledge. It was his coping mechanism to sitting in class and not acting up out of boredom. I give him credit for that at least.

So I'm curious what's wrong with pull out and what's a better alternative?

Deep Blue

Today at 10:56 am

I'm a fellow mother with super advanced kids. I'm so curious which school this is because I didn't think it exists in a typical school.
For ideas : you said you dont want to do something language based because they will learn it later. However for secular enrichment there are curriculum which focus on word roots. Rav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch is very into this in ivris. I know someone who has the nine book set of RSRH in English so I've read almost all of it. He has one or two essays on just this topic, as well as essays based on word root connections for yomim Tovim, seasons. Not such a practical idea as it is probably too advanced for third grade and hard to pull together as a curriculum. Maybe something to think about for future.

amother

Lily ↓

Today at 11:08 am

Taken from giftedspace.com

1. build something with them based on the chumash they are learning
2. challenge them with concepts from Torah eg. what is "ערך" and how does it apply?
3. Torah ideas on current events
4. hilchos muktza with all the categories

I think they have more if you get in touch with them

amother

↑ Lily

Today at 11:11 am

More ideas from giftedspace

Trace the journey of the Yidden in the midbar and what they did in each place
challenge them with a tough situation and what they would do eg. if you landed in a place with no kosher food for Shabbos what could you do?
Get them to build a board game based on a Jewish concept

Bleemee

Today at 11:27 am

I like the gifted space ideas.

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