Ohio Jewish Chronicle, 1991-12-12

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The Ohio Jewish Chronicle
, Serving Columbus and Central Ohio   ■*.
/rarish Gommuni'fy for Over 60 Years ■
VOLUME 69
NUMBER 51
DECEMBER 12,1991
5TEVET5752
DEVOTED   TO   AMERICAN   AND   JEWISH   IDEALS
Columbus residents
Ohio   Hist.Society
1982,  Velma   Ave.
Columbus,   Ohio
L'ibr
honored by Yeshiva
page 2
David Duke
The next steps
page 3
Tifereth Israel plans
weekend with scholar
page 6
Red Gross needs
blood donations now
' ■   ' ■ Page 8
Gpmmunity gears up
for more resettlement
page 10
EARLY DEADLINES
Thursday, Dec. 26, issue',
NOON, THURSDAY, DEC. 19
Thursday, Jan. 2, issue
\    NOON, THURSDAY, DEC. 26
The OJC office will be closed on Wednesday,
Dec 25, and Wednesday, Jan. 1
In The Chronicle
At The JCC  '.  14
Community ......  4-8
Federation ,...• 'J 10,11
FrontPage .... , 2
Lifecycle   ■...'.• 12
Marketplace  15
New Generation ...,....,, 9
, Scoreboard ...........:,,.;....... ^ .14
Synagogues ....... ..-A\,,,,,...: .v 13
Viewpoint ...,,,............'.,.,,.'._ 3
COMMUNITY FEATURE
Torah Prep opens its doors
By S. Henfield
Torah Prep has come to Columbus. The newest addition
to the community's growing
number of Jewish educational
alternatives held its first open
house on Wednesday, Oct. 9.
The school, offering both preschool and kindergarten programs, is located at 3589 E.
Main St., in Whitehall.
"The great success of the
first open house far exceeded
our expectations and confirmed our belief that there is
an ever emerging segment of
our community that is interested in the type of program
Torah Prep has to offer," said
Yehudis Blumberger, an active Torah Prep board member. Blumberger and her husband, Avraham, who manufactures one of America's
largest lines of Jewish children's board games, moved to
Columbus three years ago.
"We lived in New York and
Detroit before moving to Columbus," commented ^Blumberger, "and we saw how the
emergenceof new schools in a
community not only helped
the community, but also
served as a catalyst to attract
new families to a community.
We're sure this will be the
case in Columbus, too."
The establishment of Torah
Prep is noteworthy not only as
a testament to the growth of
Jewish services offered in Columbus; but particularly because of its unique educational
program. The classroom dynamic at Torah Prep is a synthesis of the Montessori approach to early childhood education with a more traditional
format that encourages the
development of social interaction skills; according to kindergarten teacher Chani Cap-
land.
The Montessori approach
which emphasizes each student receiving individual at
tention and progressing at a
pace appropriate for him/her
is employed extensively in the.,
language arts program and
the development of reading
skills. The standard method of
dividing students, into various
reading group levels often results in Children inadvertently
being labeled as "smart" or
"slow," Capland pointed out.
With reading being done on a
personalized basis students
are never aware of how fast or
slow their classmates are progressing.
Another feature of this individualized approach is that
the teacher is able to keep a
daily chart which notes the
child's strengths and weaknesses in reading skills and
exactly what should be
stressed the next day or during the next week. In this way,
the teacher is also able to give
parents very specific feedback on their child's progress
as well as definite suggestions
on how parents can help at
home with their child's learning. The results of this approach speak for themselves.
At the time of the open house,
the kindergarten students
were well on their way to mastering reading and writing the
English alphabet as well as
reading the Hebrew aleph beis
and the vowels.
Those who attended the
open house had a chance to
see the innovative manner in
which the classroom is set up,
were able to speak with other
parents whose children attend
Torah Prep and listened to
Capland explain what a typical day at Torah Prep is like
and what the curriculum is designed to achieve. In general,
Capland said, Torah Prep is
; committed to much more than
teaching traditional skills. The
school plaices great emphasis
on nurturing Jewish values,
fostering caring and sensitive
character traits and making a
concerned effort to give each
student the space necessary to
develop his/her own talents
and strengths and to afford
students the opportunity to express their personalities in the
classroom. •*-■■■---■:•
"Multidimensional is a
word that aptly describes our
classroom," said Capland.
"We create different activities, art projects, games and
songs to reinforce the weekly
lessons. Whether we are
learning aleph-beis, math or
the weekly Torah portion,
there is always a lot going on
in the classroom that relates
to these themes for the week."
Steven Delott, an attorney,
commented that "the informal style of the classroom
with various activities set up
in all sections of the room allows the children a lot of exciting options during their free-
play time. This is ideal for our
sons' active and curious pei>-
sohalities." His wife, Barbara,
agrees.
Learning at Torah Prep is
designed to be experimental.
The approach to English and
writing skills is especially
popular with the children.
Each letter is assigned its own
personality and comical char-.
acter. The week of the open
house the children were learning the letter and sound "M"
which was personified as
Mr.-Munching-Mouth-M. All
week long children would go
home and flip through their
parents' magazines looking
for pictures that began with
munching-mouth-m. Another
learning experience came
along with learning the letter
"F." Funny-Feet-F was the
humorous theme for the week.
Undoubtedly the week's highlight was when the children
traced the shapes of their feet
on big pieces of paper and
then had a great time coloring
in their own steps in a rainbow's array of colors.
Anyone who visits Torah
Prep immediately sees the
love and enthusiasm which
the teachers bring to the classroom. Esther Kaltman, a
graduate of Beth Rivka
Teachers College in Brooklyn,
N.Y., teaches the pre-school
students. Her warmth and
genuine concern for the children have been essential in
helping some anxious youngsters successfully take those
tentative steps from their parents' home to a classroom environment.
"At first our daughter, Tali,
was apprehensive about her
new school," said Yael Levi,
"but she adjusted quickly.
Now, even when she wakes up
from a nap, she wants to know
if it's time to go to school. The
teachers are very" warm and
friendly and the classroom
set-up encourages a lot of interaction between the kids
which we feel has been very
beneficial for our daughter."
Capland has many years of
teaching experience and has
created a number of programs and curriculum materials which have, been acclaimed by Torah Umesorah
(the national group of day
school teachers across North
America). Recently Torah
Prep was visited by Reba
Sharfstein, a nationally recognized authority on early childhood education and a Montessori teacher at the Cincinnati
day school. After observing
the Torah Prep program for
learning about Shabbat,
Sharfstein commented, "I
don't think there is anything in
the country like this .., this
curriculum should be published and distributed nationally."
The Shabbat curriculum is
unique in the way that it
blends science and the language arts to teach about
what one can or cannot do on
see TORAH pg. 4,
V
A