Welcome to our Educators' Guide for the High Holidays, our first for the new academic year!

Summer vacation is behind us and we've hopefully recharged our batteries sufficiently to take us well into the summer semester! We're all experiencing that annual sense of a new beginning brimming with challenges and potential.

As Limmudei Kodesh teachers, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are always the first items on our curriculum. We begin each year with the same topics to teach, and if we fail to adopt an original approach, our students end up sitting through almost identical classes year in year out. They'll tell you that they know it in their sleep already! Our job, as teachers, is to wake them up! Quite a task when what your students really want is to be back on the beach or exchanging holiday gossip!

Don't panic! The month of Tishrei is the fullest and richest in the Jewish calendar. This Educators' Guide provides you with a general educational plan plus teaching ideas that are flexible enough to suit your classroom needs.

Teaching Limmudei Kodesh can involve such a variety of activities and skills that every one of your students can be motivated by some aspect of the subject. Get to know the personalities in your class and tailor your lessons to suit their tastes and interests. Whatever the size of your class, don't be afraid to differentiate i.e.; to give different activities to individual students. This way more topics are covered and information can be shared, in oral or written form, at the end of the class.

Your students have such diverse interests and talents - exploit them!

We hope that this guide will help you make discovering the Jewish holidays a fun and interactive learning experience for your students.