Ideas for kodesh pull-out enrichment for third grade

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.