Kitchen Playground
Early childhood/family
The Kitchen
San Francisco
Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund
Target Population
Parents with children ages five and under, many of whom were involved at The Kitchen before they had children.
Jewish Knowledge/Engagement Level of Participants
Many have a basic familiarity with the most common Jewish family practices but feel they don’t know enough and are looking for someone with whom to partner.
Primary Goals
To provide opportunities for young parents to “do Jewish” together, build community, and in the course of doing so gain tools to “do Jewish” in their own homes. In this way, the program hopes to prompt participants to think in different ways about their family’s Jewish life, and “to expand their family’s sense of ‘home’ as a place where Jewish happens.”
Brief Description
The Playground provides both a space and programming for parents of young children at The Kitchen, an independent Jewish community in San Francisco. The programming is constructed to parallel different moments in the Shabbat cycle: Kabbalat Shabbat, Shabbat morning, afternoon, twilight/Seudah Shlishit, and Havdalah. Each time, the offerings include a mix of play-based learning for children and parents, both together and separately, and shared Jewish experiences: singing, movement, art, eating, and conversation. The adult learning is designed to give parents tools and strategies they will employ in their own homes to create toddler-friendly Jewish experiences, on Shabbat or at Passover, for example.
