Children’s Moshiach Movement Taking Classrooms and Homes By Storm

When Mrs. Devorah Heidingsfield of Manchester, England first brought the idea of a Moshiach curriculum to her after-school program at Bais Menachem, she didn’t know if the idea would take off. “We meet on Sunday mornings and follow the Tut Altz classes,” she shares, “they seemed interesting at first, but I didn’t know what to expect.” 

She was pleasantly surprised. Eighteen children, ages seven to nine, have been attending weekly. “The girls love it, and their parents are so happy,” she reports.

The Manchester group is not the only one. Ms. Rivky Laufer, who teaches third and fourth grade in Ateres Chaya Mushka says, “It’s hard to find content of such high quality that doesn’t require a lot of my free time to be classroom-ready.”

Original content created by the Moshiach Office at Merkos 302, “‘The Moshiach Mindset” curriculum is available to Chabad teachers worldwide. Its monthly curriculum—available in both Hebrew and English—includes a thirty-page booklet primarily based on the Rebbe’s Sichos from 5752, adapted for children. The stories and real-life scenarios keep it kid-friendly. Open-ended questions foster discussion, and exciting games get children moving and their minds churning.

This extensive and innovative program had her hooked. Aside from teaching the material in class, Laufer began dedicating hours of her own time to work at the Moshiach Office, promoting the curriculum to dozens of other schools. “My goal is to make this curriculum as accessable as it can be,” Laufer explains.

Back in Manchester, Heidingsfield follows the curriculum for her weekly meet-ups. She prints out the glossy, richly-designed booklet. She views the slideshows and follows the review guides. But she also adds her own flair. The girls in her club create something new every week, a piece of art that solidifies their understanding of Moshiach. For example, they made magnets out of clay to express an idea from the lesson. The girls created Geulah glasses and items related to simcha and ahavas yisroel. Mrs. Heidinsgfied loves that the curriculum is versatile enough to use as a complete unit, or as part of a larger project.

Moshiach Office co-director Mrs. Gitel Naparstek shares that “in just ten minutes a week, any group—whether a class, extra-curricular club or chavrusa—is able to cover the curriculum over the course of a month. Some families study it together every Shabbos. For them it might take twenty minutes.” For a price-point of only $2.99, anyone can print a booklet. And the rest of the materials—activities, slideshows, worksheets, and games—are free.

There are currently fifty-five Anash schools, winter camps and after-school groups utilizing the platform. Over a hundred families have brought the curriculum into their homes as well, bringing the total number of first-hand users to over 6,100 children. A raffle incentivizes students to share the specially-prepared dvar Torah over Shabbos (eight winners are chosen weekly), so their parents and siblings benefit too, rounding the actual total to many more.

“It’s exciting when children share their newfound knowledge with parents and siblings,” says Mrs. Pessi Stolik, Director of Curricula at Tut Altz Kids, “they become the Rebbe’s shluchim for increasing the study of Moshiach Mindset topics. The Dvar Torah that we provide offers ideas of how anyone can use that week’s lesson in a practical way. It’s empowering to our children and creates a mindshift in the students’ families too.”

From Manchester, Mrs. Heidingsfield shares how the Moshiach curriculum changed the mindset of one of her students. “We were discussing a concept from the curriculum—praising Hashem, how that brings Moshiach. The next day, a mother told me that her daughter said—out of the blue—thank you for everything you do. To her response of, ‘Wow, that’s so unexpected,’ Her daughter told her about how she learned in Tut Altz that giving thanks brings the Geulah.”

She adds, “The program is absolutely beautiful. I’m grateful for the opportunity to run it here in Manchester and for my daughters to be a part of it as well.”

“We wanted to create a revolution, bring Moshiach back to the forefront of people’s minds. We began doing this with the ‘Tut Altz’ campaign for adults. But bringing it to the children’s level is something the Rebbe truly wanted,” says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Vice-Chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch. “We’re proud of the hard work and extremely telling results,” he added.

The ‘Moshiach Mindset’ curriculum is available today for teachers, educators, and parents. Hard copies can be bought for a minimal fee and shipped anywhere in the US. Resources are downloadable directly via TutAltz.com/kids. And for those in Crown Heights, issues are for sale at Kahan’s!