Kavana Family Education Program Welcome to Kavana’s Family Education Program - as developed by a team of parents involved in our cooperative.  While this is Kavana’s first year offering a children’s and family education program, its goals are clear: The overall goal of Kavana family education is to promote our Jewish identity, knowledge, and culture by teaching the fundamental building blocks of Judaism – values, history, observance, rituals and traditions, Hebrew, and a connection to Israel – in a casual, camp-like atmosphere. Kavana’s approach: First, it aims to provide learning opportunities for children AND parents; consistent with our roots as a cooperative, our education program is not simply a “drop-off” program. Second, it embraces an experiential approach to learning. Our education program mimics the learning methods used – and that we believe succeeded in creating strong Jewish identities – in summer camps, youth groups, and Israel trips. Kavana's programs: We envision Kavana’s family and children’s education program as a three-legged stool. Kavana Prep and Practice: helps families prepare to celebrate upcoming Jewish holidays at home - launched in September 2007, but still open for series or single event participation Kavana Family Shabbat: introduces families to celebrating Shabbat mornings together and with their community - launching in October 2007 - open for series or single event participation An after-school Jewish education program for kids - to be piloted on several weekdays this winter and spring - more information coming soon. Kavana's family education philosophy: All three of these programs reflect our philosophy: parents’ involvement is necessary to develop kids’ positive Jewish identities, an experiential approach to learning is far preferable to a classroom-based style. Our first Prep and Practice program this year – in which families together learned “hands-on” to build a Sukkah and bake round challot – illustrated this alternative approach to Jewish education. Our Family Shabbat program, which will offer successive learning sessions for parents and children together and separate, will also reflect this approach. Kavana's resources: Our education program is staffed by creative and accomplished professionals, working closely with Kavana partners.  Kavana has hired two professional educators to help us bring our ideas to fruition. Darci Lewis is advising us on our educational curriculum for the family Shabbat program. Darci is Assistant Director of a Jewish early childhood school where she supervises over sixty teachers and leads both an after-school arts enrichment program and a Jewish summer camp. What most attracted us to Darci, however, was both her enthusiasm for writing a new curriculum for us that reflected our philosophy and her incredible experience – gained already at a relatively youthful age – in Jewish education. Darci will supervise two talented children’s teachers, Shannon Cruzen and Sarah Adams, who will lead the kids’ Shabbat programs. We also are fortunate to have hired Aviva Richman to consult on our after-school program. Aviva was one of the original teachers and developers of an award winning after-school program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Kesher (www.kesherweb.org), that we admire a great deal. Aviva brings a unique background in experiential Jewish education that we are excited to apply to Kavana. We hope you will join us on what we believe will be a novel journey in Jewish family education! We will have more information available about our after-school program as it develops. Kavana Prep and Practice What’s the activity? Throughout the year, we will offer a Sunday program shortly before an upcoming holiday to learn about and prepare to celebrate it. Activities may include crafts, cooking, drama, stories, singing, dancing, and discussion. When the holiday arrives, families can choose to celebrate in their own way — either at home with family and friends, or at a Kavana community holiday program.Click here to Sign-up.  Who is it for? The Holiday Prep and Practice Program is oriented toward families with children of all ages. Families—parents and children—attend and participate in the event together. When is it? For the coming year, the prep programs are scheduled to be offered about once per month. The schedule is below… specific times are to be determined, but they’re typically mid-day. Sunday, September 09, 2007 High Holidays/Sukkot/Simchat Torah (DONE) Sunday, October 28, 2007 Shabbat Sunday, December 2, 2007 Hannukah Sunday, January 27, 2008 Shabbat Sunday, March 16, 2008 Purim Sunday, April 06, 2008 Pesach Sunday, May 18, 2008 Lag B'Omer/Shavout How can I participate? To provide the best programming that we can bring you, we are asking families to register now for the 7-event series that will take place throughout the year. As an added incentive, we are offering a significantly discounted rate to families who sign up for the whole series. You can sign up your family to come to a prep event, although we'd prefer for you to register now for the entire series of events, as this will help us plan for the year (and we’ll offer a discounted rate to families that do). In addition, as a cooperative, we strongly encourage an adult from each family to join in helping to plan and organize these events. You can contribute by either joining the Holiday Prep Planning Team (which meets periodically to plan the content of the events – contact Scott Porad via the main Kavana email: kavanaseattle@gmail.com for more info) or by volunteering for a smaller tasks at one or more events (e.g. set-up, shopping, craft activities, etc.). Cost? The cost of Kavana's Holiday Prep and Practice series has been partially underwritten by a generous grant from the Legacy Heritage Foundation. This grant is helping us to cover program development costs (e.g. curricular development, training, and evaluation), but it does not cover all of the programmatic costs associated with each event (e.g. facility rental, craft supplies, snacks, etc.). Therefore, we are asking each registering family to help us cover our programmatic costs when they register. Cost is $50 for the series for Kavana partner families, or $100 for the series for non-partner families.   For families who prefer to attend single events, the cost per family for each event is $20. Registration is required and space may be limited at certain events.  If you want to pay at a later day after you've signed up - you can do so here. As always, please let us know if you have any questions by e-mailing us at kavanaseattle@gmail.com.  Again - Click here to Sign-up.  Kavana Family Shabbat What’s the activity?  During the first year of our Shabbat Family program, the activity will be a monthly family program on Shabbat.  It will be a two-part morning event, comprised of a learning activity for children and parents separately and a learning activity for children and parents together, combined with a family Shabbat service.  Click here to Sign-up (note - this is a separate sign-up than for Prep and Practice) Who is it for?  This year the Kavana Shabbat Family Education Program will have two cohorts of children, one pre-elementary and the other early-elementary (k-3).  The cohorts will have separate learning programs.  When is it?  The Shabbat Family Education Program is monthly starting in October.  It will be offered from 9:30-11:30am on the following Saturdays: October 13, 2007 November 3, 2007 December 8, 2007 January 12, 2008 February 9, 2008 March 8, 2008 April 12, 2008 May 10, 2008 June 14, 2008 How can I participate? Like Kavana’s Prep and Practice Program, we prefer that families sign up for the entire education series in advance.  As an incentive, we will offer a significantly discounted rate to families who sign up for the whole series.  Partners will also receive a substantial discount. You can also sign up your family to attend a single Shabbat morning program shortly before that month’s event.  Since we are a cooperative, in this program the parents participate in their kids’ education.  We request that at least one caregiver attend each event with your children.  Cost?  As with our Prep and Practice program, the cost of Kavana's Family Shabbat program has been partially underwritten by a generous grant - this time from the Carol Auerbach Foundation. This grant is helping us to cover program development costs, but it does not cover all of the programmatic costs associated with each event (e.g. facility rental, craft supplies, snacks, etc.). Therefore, we are asking each registering family to help us cover our programmatic costs when they register. Specifically - $70 for the 9-session series for families of partners, and $140 for the series for families of non-partners. The cost per session is $20 if families want pay for individual sessions. If you want to pay at a later day after you've signed up - you can do so here. Again - Click here to Sign-up Please note: We want to make sure that our programs/events are accessible to whomever is interested, regardless of financial capacity. Therefore - if you need any assistance in paying for events, please let us know. Copyright © 2006-2007 Kavana. All rights reserved.