Looking to year 2

Today we reviewed the alef-bet and sang through the alef-bet song. (You can hear the song here. I opened discussions as to how to better finish the lyrics.) There was a particularly attentive group today. Even the energetic spirit pointed out that Hebrew has two s's two t's and a ts. And the studious spirit had us repeat the song many times. I suggested that next year we might do a page for each letter as a letter of fire and end the year with an alef-bet book for each person. (Note the comment of the Velveteen Rabbi on this post re letters of fire.)

And I assigned homework for the summer. A kind of find Waldo exercise - see this diagram. For each letter in red on the second page, find it in the corresponding paragraph. For some of the children this will be more difficult than for others. I had a mistake in the diagram which I only discovered after printing it. So I left it there for the eldest to find. I don't know how it happened - somehow I had copied storm wind סער from Psalm 107:25 instead of sustain סעד Psalm 119:117. In the diagram I have replaced the Samech word with Support סמך as considered here. Perhaps I had two examples and kept differing pieces of them. It looks though as if I had traded a resh for a dalet - easy to do when reading or when writing but hardly when using copy and paste on a computer.

If we have a class during the summer, I will explore these shapes - maybe.

Have a fun summer - all.

Catching up

There was a full room on Sunday - 11 children and 4 adults. We sang and looked at the Shema in the book דברים (debarim). the second word of the book we call Deuteronomy (Greek roughly for second law). We read the Shema also - שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד just to the first word of chapter 6 verse 5 - and thou shalt love... ואהבת (ve'ahavta)

I wasn't sure how much time I had - and I could have gone further. But it was good to complete the sentence in English also...

After a year, I feel the need to emphasize the aural more - more talking - more singing - more communicative behaviour in the ancient tongue. I think I will try and link in further to the Cohelet project on this subject. (A very clever name - sounds like Qohelet the preacher = our Ecclesiastes!)