Class Updates
Studying Tanakh
with Morah Sarah
Kitah Hey has begun our study of Tanakh this year by learning about the various books of the Hebrew Bible. In previous grades, most of our learning has focused on the Chumash, or first five books of the Torah. We began learning these new texts this year by looking at a chart of the different sections of Tanakh: Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim and identifying which types of books are included in each. We have had an opportunity to do some hands-on learning, comparing the Etz Hayim chumash they are familiar with from Shabbat services, to various types of full Tanakhs. We looked at different translations and examined some transitional texts, from the end of the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) to the beginning of the book of Joshua. Ask us which words of advice were mentioned in both books.
We were all so excited to get our new Tanakhs! We started taking notes right away.
Hebrew
with Moreh Itamar
This week in Hebrew/T'filot we started learning about the beginning of the Torah service. We read about Matan Torah at Mount Sinai and discussed the Midrash that says that in each generation we should see ourselves as the ones who were given the Torah at mt. Sinai. We imagined escaping from egypt and the things that we would take with us and pondered the question why do what made us worthy of the Torah.
On the second part of class we started a thorough review of the Hebrew vowel signs.
Chaggim (Holidays)
With Morah Livia
As we embark on our Shabbat learning, we began with a focus on the Kiddush prayer. We discovered that every Friday when we bless the wine, we mention two important events in history, which are both found in the Torah. First, we mention the creation of the world and the Exodus from Egypt. We hypothesized why these events are important and why they are mentioned in Kiddush. We had a meaningful discussion and came to a conclusions that without these events we wouldn’t be here today. We hope that next time you say Kiddush, you'll find new meaning.
Hebrew
with Moreh Itamar
In the past few weeks, we've been learning the Ein Camocha and Vayehy Binsoa. We learned about the meaning of the T'flillot and the place they take in the service.
When working on reading the prayers, I like using games to make it more fun and engaging. One game we played recently is "finding the missing word": I read a line of a prayer only skipping one word. Students have to find the missing word and point to it in their textbook. The last one to find it has to read the line it was on, and others repeat word by word. We keep going around until everyone reads and the entire prayer is covered.
Our goals for the coming weeks are learning the Shema, Echad, Gadlu and Beh Ana Racheitz.
Hebrew
with Moreh Itamar
We started our year of Hebrew learning by reviewing and assessing learners' familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet and vowels. The results were great, and over the next few weeks we will keep reinforcing the letters and vowels while gradually introducing more reading.
Looking forward to next week!
Listening and singing along to Moreh Jacob's song.
Listening to Moreh Jacob play piano
Hebrew
with moreh Itamar
This week in Hebrew we continued learning about the beginning of the Torah service. In preparation to reading the Ein Camocha we learned the shoresh מ.ל.כ and the meaning of מלך, ימלך, מלכות, מלכותו. With Avi we continued our vowel review.