Where Torah Study Fits In The School Day

In our school, each class begins every day with tefillot, a morning service. During our first grade tefillot, we take our Sefer Torah out of the Aron Kodesh for a brief Torah service every Monday and Thursday, the traditional Torah reading days. The class sings “Torah tziva lanu moshe” while one student walks around with the Torah and everyone has a chance to kiss it. I then open up the Torah and chant one or two lines from the week’s parasha in Hebrew. I name the week’s parasha and make explicit links to the Torah discussion we will have later. Our morning tefillot last about a half hour each day. On Mondays and Thursdays we schedule an additional 45 minute session for Torah study following tefillot.