Mashiv Haruach

Grade/Class: Grade 3 & 4

Context: In Tefilah, Grade 3 & 4 students learned about the prayer "mashiv haruach u'morid hageshem". 

Learning:

1. Grade 4 students learned why we add the prayer in the winter months. They created bar graphs of rainfall by month in Toronto (rain falls pretty consistently all year long here). Then, they did the same for Jerusalem. They noticed that rain only falls in the winter in Israel.  Teacher led a discussion about why it’s important for Jews in the diaspora to pray for rain for Eretz Israel. This also connects with their Math learning in data management.

2. Grade 3 students considered the significance of rainfall for B'nei Israel. Today, we take for granted that rain falls from the sky (even in Israel). However, for the Israelites, water really only appeared when it was already in the ground (the Nile, wells/springs in the desert). The first rainfall that the Israelites saw must have been quite the spectacle! As a connected drama activity, Grade 3 created short movies in the STEAM Lab reenacting the Israelites seeing and feeling geshem for the first time.

3. Grade 3 & 4 learned how people have learned to make use of wind and rain/water over the years. They experimented with a model electric turbine, and then built mechanical windmills which connected with their Science unit on simple machines.