JCC Blog

JCC Early Childhood Educators Among the Best & Brightest in Baltimore

The Baltimore JCC is thrilled with its new leadership and teaching teams at its Stoler (Owings Mills) and Meyerhoff (Park Heights) Early Childhood Education Centers (ECEC’s).

At the core of our ECEC programs are excellent administrators and educators who understand the early years of life are the most critical in forming a child’s opinion of himself or herself. Our team’s goal is to create an enriched environment full of excitement and encouragement.

We individualize our teaching styles to meet the needs of each and every child, and consider ourselves to be partners with our parents. Enhancing your child’s confidence and curiosity through creative engagement is what we do – everyday!

Supporting the J Community

Helping everyone to participate in our programs

Each year the JCC provides over $543,000 in need‐based scholarships for children, teens and adults to participate in JCC Early Childhood, Inclusion activities, JCC Maccabi Games and ArtsFest, J Camps, and J Membership. These programs reflect how the “J” connects families, supports individuals and helps build a stronger community. Funding for these scholarships comes from The Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore as well as fundraising events like J Live at the Gordon, Chanukah Hot Chocolate 5K, the Baltimore Jewish Hall of Fame and the Community Block Party.

Celebrating Jewish Holidays with Our ECEC Children

How do you begin to teach preschool children about the Jewish holidays?

In the Fall of 2017, members of the JCC’s Early Childhood Education Center team assembled a beautiful document providing answers to that question.  Over the course of six months, they developed a resource guide for fellow JCC teachers entitled: Chageinu: Our Celebrations!: An Early Childhood Education Curricular Resource for Teaching Holidays.

The principal authors behind Chageinu were Judy Bickford, Assistant Director of the Meyerhoff ECEC, Staci Katz, Early Childhood Educator (who conceived the idea), and Rabbi Jessy Dressin.

According to Judy, “In creating this text, we wanted to develop a dynamic, growing document. We published it in the form a notebook, so everything is removable. We can add to it as the need arises, or we can subtract from it.”

The...

A Passion for Dance, Kindness, and Respect

Many in the Jewish Community already know JCC staff member Sara Rubinstein. Sara was recently awarded the Darrell D. Friedman Institute’s Neely Tal Snyder Community Impact Award, for her work improving the lives of people with disabilities both here at the J and within the Jewish community.

What many don’t know about Sara is her career trajectory, and what led her to do this incredibly important work as a champion for people with diverse needs and advocate for inclusion.

A participant in dance programs since kindergarten, Sara’s “first love” was, and remains, dance, with musical theatre a strong second. 

Through high school, Sara was convinced she would someday become a dance teacher, but at St....