Jewish Learning Center
Register for the 2024-25 JLC School Year!
First year is complimentary, for those who are
Pre-School families whose child is Pre-K, and will concurrently attend with JLC. First child only.
This school year, the JLC will focus on two core values: Kavod (respect) and Chesed (kindness). We will continue to infuse Social Emotional Learning in all of our programming, but also make sure to spend a hefty amount of time on respecting others, as well as ourselves and being kind to everyone.
Through the incorporation of electives, our students will participate in cultural enrichment that will enhance their learning environment. In trimester tracks, students will choose three activities like sports, gardening, cooking, dance, creative writing, debate, and choir/band. We will continue to create a safe, nurturing atmosphere that our students, parents, and staff never want to leave.
Pre-K/KINDERGARTEN
Our youngest learners will focus their studies on our holidays, including the best one that happens every week—Shabbat! We will plant trees for Tu B’shevat, create our own Challah covers for Shabbat, and sing all the songs that make our heart happy. We will also work on our Hebrew letter scrap book to lay the foundation for our Hebrew learning, learn the prayers that we will say for our entire lives like the Shema and HaMotzi.
1st - 2nd Grade
This is the year to learn the lessons that Torah teaches, with an emphasis on the Ten Commandments. Each week, we will investigate our fore parents like Adam and Eve and Abraham and Sarah to try to apply their good values into our own lives. We will create our own Living Torah that will remind us to find the good in every situation. Hebrew this year will reinforce our letters while adding our vowels to make fun sounds.
3rd-4TH GRADE
Our focus is Jewish Identity. We will explore all the things that make us Jewish, all while applying those concepts to our lives. It’s not just opening a book a reading about honoring our parents; it is going home and helping out around the house and being polite. Our Hebrew learning will work on our foundational language acquisition, adding more prayers and words into our knowledge base. At the end of the year, we will design a Siddur cover and at one of our special JLC Shabbats, we will be presented with our very own Mishkan T’Filah (prayer book) that we will use on the day of our Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
5TH - 6TH GRADES
Our older learners focus on tikkun olam, repairing our world, and the responsibility of being good stewards to our only planet, and all the things that Torah teaches us to preserve what we have. For our Shabbats on the Beach, our Fifth and Sixth graders will lead the charge to clean up our environment and leave our spaces cleaner than the way we found them. They will be our leaders at our Tu B’shevat seder and teach all of us about the responsibility to preserve. By this year, our Hebrew will focus more on our prayers and feeling comfortable leading them during T’filah on Sundays and even for our Shabbats together, so that by the conclusion of Sixth Grade, our students will be fully prepared to become Bar or Bat Mitzvah in the year ahead.
7th Grade
As our learners mature into young men and women, we will spend our year exploring morals and ethics that reinforce our strong Jewish values. Each week, our students will explore a scenario, discuss the Talmudic view, and then share our opinions. We will rise to the occasion of being the oldest learners on our Sundays, and shape ourselves into the leaders we are meant to be. Whether it’s reading to our youngest students, or learning about the Holocaust from a survivor, our Sixth graders will rise above adolescence and approach each experience with poise and humility. For our Hebrew learning, we will continue working on our prayers, continue to lead T’filah on Sundays as well as on Shabbat, and we will end the year, fully capable and prepared to become Bar or Bat Mitzvah in the following year ahead.
TEENS After Dark (GRADES 7-12)
This is a night where our pre-teens and teens can get together to eat, hang out, and learn some things in an informal, laid back setting. Our evening will commence with an amazing youth group activity, and then we’ll eat. Our curriculum will be entirely student driven, anything from spirituality to hot topics will be on the table for discussion. We may invite guest speakers to assist us in our exploration of Jewish Identity. If our students wish to connect with nursing home residents, we will. In addition to this all, our Seventh graders will continue their Bar/t Mitzvah preparation as well as dissect their Torah portions’ meanings.
Barb Bell Segal, JLC Director
Barb has been a slew of titles here at Temple Beth El, over the last nineteen years, such as preschool camp counselor, Kindergarten Sunday school teacher, 7th grade teacher, and Music teacher, as well as JLC Director. A native of Broward County, Barb has taught religious school at various synagogues, in some fashion since 1992—songleading, Bar/t Mitzvah tutoring, assistant to the Principal, Judaica High School, Camp Coleman, and the like. After attending college at Florida State and Florida Atlantic, Barb worked for USD Hagshama, a division of the WZO. For the last 21 years, Barb has taught Social Science at Fort Lauderdale High School and has been very active in the Broward Teachers Union. Barb, her husband Dave, their daughter Jewell, and dog Ike, live in Hollywood Lakes.
