Riley and Ruby- I wonder how the candles burned for 8 days?
Jaron- Why is Chanukah on snowy days?
Corbett- What weapons did the Maccabees use?
Benjamin- How old was Judah when he died?
Gabby and Elana- I wonder why we get presents on Chanukah?
Presley- Why is Chanukah a holiday?
Here’s a peak into our daily week. Every day, we start with circle time. At our circle time, we sing many songs and always learn a video of the week. This week, we focused on the Hebrew Letter gimmel, that makes a “g” sound, and learned about our Guf, our bodies.
Here’s the video from this week
After, there is usually a project or learning task that we work on in small groups, and while we do that, the other children are playing at Hebrew and Jewish focused centers, including building Hebrew letters out of play dough and legos, Hebrew games on the Ipad, Playing House (We call it Bayit, house in Hebrew), coloring about Jewish ideas, etc…
This week, we learned an important rule to help us remember how to know if a word in Hebrew is Feminine or Masculine. For those of you Hebrew readers, did you know that any word that ends in the following vowel/letter combinations is feminine?
check out this link to hear the awesome videos your kids made to help us remember this rule.
Enjoy!
Please discuss these questions as a family, and have your child write the answers to the questions (if you know the answers) in the comment section:
Today we began to learn about Shtetl life. Here are some of the questions that 2nd graders are wondering about that will help guide our unit.
Last week, the students exclaimed that they want to know how to say all of the different things in the classroom in Hebrew, this way, they will speak more Hebrew in class! (I’ll keep you posted on that one). Ask your child to read his or her cards to you.
When he held a class meeting this week, we talked about the idea of learning more about Judaism, not just “doing” it. We looked through our siddur (prayer book) and chose a prayer we felt like we could learn more about. The students chose the prayer Birchot HaShachar, prayers of the morning. These prayers are supposed to align with our morning routine and different things we do when waking up and starting our day. These are not in the order that they are in the prayer book, but enjoy. Ask your child to explain what his or her blessing is about. (excuse the technological errors, it is cutting of some videos and I can’t seem to figure out how to change it)
Finally, we learned an exciting Parsha again today (aren’t they all exciting? ) Toldot! Here are some Parsha questions for you to quiz your child on at home:
How many children did Yitzchak and Rivka have and what was special about them? (2-TWINS)
What color hair did Esav have (red)
What did Ya’akov put on his arms to make them feel like Esav’s arms? (Goat Skin)
What did Ya’akov still from his brother Esav? (A blessing)
What happened to Yitzchak when he got old? (He was blind)
What did Rivka tell Ya’akov to do at the end of this parsha (Run away)
Challenge questions:
What does Ya’akov’s name mean and why? (It means heal, and it is taught that he was holding onto his twins brothers heal when he was born)
With whom did Ya’akov go live at the end of the Parsha (with Rivka’s brother Lavan)
Another fun filled week in Kita Aleph. The kiddos learned the letter Daled this week. We also are reviewing the vowel that makes the “ee” sound. Check out our morning meeting where we sing the Aleph Bet, but make sure to listen for the second part where we sing each letter with the vowel EE sound.
This week, we had many conversations of kindness and what is means. We read the story One Good Deed, and discussed the idea that these acts of kindness were not only done without anyone asking them to do something kind, but more importantly, they were done with no expectation of reward.
In relation to this kindness conversation, we also talked about the idea that sometimes, when people are down or going through something hard, it’s not our job to know what’s wrong, but it IS our responsibility to make others feel better and cheer them up. Some kids shared about times in their lives when they needed others to cheer them up.
I explained to them that a Jewish community in Pittsburgh is going through a hard time, and someone did something to them that was very mean. I explained to the children that it’s not our job to know all of the details, but that it’s a great mitzvah to send letters to the community that will cheer them up. We talked about what kind of words will cheer people up. The kids made letters of beautiful drawings and one word on each letter. Some words included “Strength”, “Hope” and “Love”. Make sure to ask your child what word he or she had.
Finally, we learned an exciting Parsha again today (aren’t they all exciting? ) Toldot! Here are some Parsha questions for you to quiz your child on at home:
How many children did Yitzchak and Rivka have and what was special about them? (2-TWINS)
What color hair did Esav have (red)
What did Ya’akov put on his arms to make them feel like Esav’s arms? (Goat Skin)
What did Ya’akov still from his brother Esav? (A blessing)
What happened to Yitzchak when he got old? (He was blind)
What did Rivka tell Ya’akov to do at the end of this parsha (Run away)
Challenge questions:
What does Ya’akov’s name mean and why? (It means heal, and it is taught that he was holding onto his twins brothers heal when he was born)
With whom did Ya’akov go live at the end of the Parsha (with Rivka’s brother Lavan)
Today 1st and 2nd grade played a rousing game of “I’m thinking of a character in the Torah who….”
We had a blast and I was so excited to hear what they knew.
Try this at home with your child.
I’m thinking of a character in the Torah who….
… Is the brother of the person who let the Jews out of Egypt(Aharon/Aaron/
… Flew out of the ark and never came back (Raven)
… Almost sacrficed his son (Avraham)
… Ate a tree first from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
…turned into a pillar of salt (Lot’s wife)
… An evil wizard who meant to cheese the Jews, but God turned his curse into a blessing (Balaam)
שבת שלום! Shabbat Shalom
Welcome to this special space where the 6th and 7th grade Hebrew students and I can share the learning happening in Hebrew.
Here is a link to some of our Flip Grids, an app we use to document our learning! Enjoy 🙂
Below, you can check out our map projects the students worked on. The Hebrew skills we were reviewing included vocabulary and grammar to help describe a map to an audience.