Welcome!
Shalom, I am Marla Aviva Bentley, the Director of Music at TBI and your student’s 6th grade Hebrew and Religious School teacher. This is my 10th year teaching at TBI, but for the first time, I am also a parent in my own class. My daughter, Hannah, will be my own student. Some teachers might see this as a challenge, but I am thrilled to teach this wonderful group of learners, most of whom I have known almost their whole lives. It is certainly a benefit to be both a parent and a teacher, and I hope that I will always provide you with the information you need, in a timely fashion, for us to have a wildly successful year together.

6th Grade Blog
Thus, for the past many years, I have created a blog dedicated to this class. Our 6th grade blog will be a consistent source of information to keep you up to date and to find everything you and your student needs in one convenient place. As a parent of two students who are learning remotely in the Deerfield school district, I feel your pain. There are too many links, too many websites, and places to find, check and understand your student’s assignments. I promise to make our class as streamlined as possible, and to have the links to everything you need always at your fingertips. At the end of this introduction, you will find links for Zoom for each class, and where information is on this website.

What’s New
This year will be different in a variety of ways. First, we will be online for the foreseeable future. This is to keep all our students, and our faculty safe. We will continue to use Zoom as the main platform for all our synchronous (live) learning. The zoom links will be the same for each week, and can always be found on the TBI ShulCloud page here: https://templebethisraelskokie.shulcloud.com/tbizoomschool. Lori Sagarin, our Director of Congregational Learning, along with a committee of parents and stakeholders, has carefully thought out the best plan for online learning for our school. So the second important change is that of how many students we are teaching at one time. Our 6th grade class class currently has 21 learners. We will divide in half for our Sunday school Religious studies, 1/2 will attend from 9:00-10:00 am each Sunday, and 1/2 from 10:00-11:00 am. On Wednesdays, learners will be divided into small pods, 4 students each, and learn Hebrew for a half hour, between 4:00-6:00 pm. All students have been placed in their pods and groups with careful consideration. If you have a concern or conflict, please reach out.

Additional Teacher – Erin Levine
Because our class is so large, we will have an additional teacher with one Hebrew pod each week. We are grateful to have Erin Levine! Erin is our new TBI 2nd grade teacher, and she helped develop the new LaBriut curriculum (more to say on that in a moment). Erin will be working with one of the two 5:30 pm Hebrew pods. Erin is a gifted educator, and she will introduce herself to you below.

Pods
Learning in small groups on Sundays, and pods on Wednesdays, will be beneficial to our students in a variety of ways. First, they will have much more direct time with me. They will be able to ask questions, and demonstrate their understanding much more frequently than in a larger setting. Second, I will be able to really get to know each individual learner, and will be able to craft the curriculum to their learning needs.

Religious School – LaBriut
Our curriculum will also be modified for this specific year. The entire school will be using a newly created curriculum called LaBriut for our religious studies. LaBriut focuses on 5 key Jewish values or middot, that are central to care-giving: Sukkat Shalom (Shelter of Peace), Ometz Lev (Inner Strength), G’vurah (Courage), K’hillah (Community), Hesed (Loving Kindness). I have dedicated a page of my website specific to the new LaBriut curriculum, and all the links parents and learners need is available on that page: https://marlaaviva.edublogs.org/labriut/.

Hebrew School – Trope
Our Hebrew pods will focus on continuing to improve our learners Hebrew reading skills, and the curriculum which is unique to 6th grade, Trope. Trope or Cantillation, is the art of chanting the Hebrew bible, such as chanting Torah or Haftarah. This is an incredible skill, not just one that can be used for their Bar or Bat Mitzvah, but the ability to read Torah and Haftarah for their lifetimes. Students often find the study of trope to be incredibly rewarding, and one of the things they loved most about 6th grade. I have an entire page of my website dedicated to this curriculum, which includes instructional videos, recordings, and pdfs of all the learning resources we will use in class. The trope page is: https://marlaaviva.edublogs.org/trope/.

For trope, we require that all students have a set of highlighters in the following colors: pink, yellow, green, orange, blue and purple. Highlighter sets such as these or these, can be purchased for around $3-5. We will also ask that parents print out certain pages for their students use in color-coding and learning.

Finally, a little about us…

Marla Aviva Bentley
This is my 10th year as the Director of Music at TBI and 6th grade teacher. I have two kids, Hannah in 6th grade and Jaret in 4th. My husband, Newell, and I live in Deerfield in an old (150+ years) farmhouse. Music and Education are my passions, I also love to read and listen to audio books, love to camp and spend time at OSRUI. When not at TBI, I am the conductor of HaZamir Chicago, a chapter of HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir, and I am currently the President of the Guild of Temple Musicians. We also have an American Bulldog named Duke. I am always available to answer your questions, or to talk, musicdirector@tbiskokie.org. I am so looking forward to working with your students, and getting to know them and your families more!

Erin Levine
My name is Erin Levine, and I am so excited to be teaching with Marla in 6th grade this year.  I just graduated with a Masters of Arts in Jewish Education and a Master of Arts in Jewish Nonprofit Management from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in May after living in Jerusalem, Israel for my first year of graduate school (2017-2018) and finishing my final 2 years of my degrees at our Los Angeles, CA campus (2018-2020).  I’m originally from Wheeling, IL, and after these 3 years of school, I’m so glad to be back!  I now have an apartment in Niles, IL with my boyfriend of 8 years, our cat, Sergeant Tibbs (whom we brought back from Jerusalem) and our dog, Colonel Walter (whom we adopted in LA), both of whom are named after characters in 101 Dalmatians.

Erin can be reached via email here.

Essential Links

Zoom Links for 6th grade:
https://templebethisraelskokie.shulcloud.com/tbizoomschool

Religious School LaBriut Curriculum:
https://marlaaviva.edublogs.org/labriut/

Hebrew School Trope Curriculum:
https://marlaaviva.edublogs.org/trope/