Hello! Welcome to the CAJE Early Childhood Listserv. We hope the time you spend in our virtual kehillah (community) is meaningful and productive.

I am Rebecca Swartz, the Early Childhood Director and preschool teacher at the Boulder Jewish Day School in Boulder, Colorado (www.bjds.org).  I completed my master’s degree in Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I taught in the Child Development Lab on campus, and relocated to Colorado a year ago. I look forward to sharing ideas and strategies and learning with you on a topic I am passionate about - Early Childhood Jewish Education!

CAJE has created some guidelines for posting on their listserv. This is a moderated list, which helps us keep spam and off-topic posts to a minimum. CAJE is committed to making your experience in our kehillah  a positive and productive one. Please help us by following these guidelines:

1. Please be conscious of whether or not you want to reply individually to someone or if you want to reply to the entire list. Keep your replies to the list focused on conversations that are relevant to the entire kehillah. When you hit "reply" remember that you are sending a message to the whole list of participants. If you wish to say hi to someone, please send an email only to their address.

2. The listserv is to be used for idea-sharing and networking, not for soliciting products. We invite you to recommend resources to others, but please refrain from advertising or promoting your own products.

3. Please be respectful of the diversity of our membership. CAJE is a pluralistic organization committed to strengthening Jewish education across denominational lines. While we ask that you try to present accurate factual information, please be tolerant of opinions that differ from your own viewpoint. There are many paths in Jewish learning and life, and multiple perspectives enrich our understanding. Please be respectful of the variety of EC practices shared on this listserv. We come from a variety of training programs, schools, and community organizations.

Sharing our early childhood experiences also helps us refine our practices. In the Jewish community, we have a strong tradition of discussion, reflection, and questioning. Think of this listserv as a Talmud page that continues to expand outward, but is rooted in Jewish tradition and good early childhood practice.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at rebeccaanneswartz@gmail.com.

Instructions:
The CAJE early childhood list-serv is currently part of Yahoo Groups. If you are not yet subscribed to the CAJE EC list, you have several options available to you:

1. You may e-mail directly to mlallen@caje.org.   Make sure to write CAJE EC list in your subject heading. You will then receive an invitation to join the list-serv. All you need to do is respond to the e-mail and you’ll be added automatically to the list.
2. You may register directly through Yahoo by going to the home page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cajeearlychildhood/ At the top of the page you will see a greeting (Welcome, Guest) followed by a link to “Join This Group!” A new screen will open with a link to “Sign up now.” This link will take you directly to a Yahoo registration page where you will create a Yahoo ID and password that you will need in order to access the benefits that the CAJE EC Yahoo group provides (files, photos, chat, archive, etc…). Once you have submitted this information, verified your e-mail address and selected your mailing options for the list-serv, you will be added automatically to the CAJE EC list.

Once you have joined the group, more information will follow, i.e., general instructions on how to send messages, how to find files area, how to upload files and more, as they become necessary.