Guest Morah!

We were so excited to have Morah Kelly as a guest Morah last Friday.  Our lesson was all about the Omer.  The Omer is the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. It marks the seven weeks it took the Jews in the desert to get from Egypt to Mount Sinai.  It is also the remembering of the barley harvest, which was marked by the Omer offering in the Temple.  

Getting ready to grind our own barley to make an omer.

We learned it was a hard but fun job.

I know it's been a while...awesomeness has been in progress!

Ayin, Nun, and Chet Oh my...

The letter ע (ayin) is very similar to the letter א (alef) in that they are both silent unless paired with a vowel. Below are some useful words that start with ע (ayin). We knew a lot of the words already.

Pencil e-pa-roan עִפָּרוֹן

Eye ah-yeen עַיִן

Eyes ay-nah-yeem עֵינַיִם

Tomato ag-va-ne-yah עַגְבָנִיָּה

Ten eh-ser עֶשֶׂר

Hebrew eve-reet עִבְרִית

Cake oo-ga עוּגָה

The next letter we learned was נ (nun). נ makes a "n" sound and is very small in size. It's like there is "nun"(none) there. The following are some נ words we practiced in class.

candle nehr   נֵר

candles nehr-ot   נֵרוֹת

Snake Na-chash   נָחָשׁ

Shoe na-al       נַעַל

Prophet. Nah-vee    נָבִיא

Miracle nehs     נֵס

The letter ח ( Chet ) makes a "ch" sound, just like כ (chaf). Although they look different and have a different name, how great is it that they make the same sound! There are lots of great ח (chet) words. Here are the ones we learned.

Challah חַלָּה

Milk Cha-lav חָלָב

Cat Cha-tool חָתוּל

Life Cha-yeem חַיִּים

Window Cha-lohn חַלּוֹן

Hot Cham חַם

Chanukiah Cha-nu-key-ah חֲנֻכִּיָּה

י (yud) makes a "y" sound, like the y in yarn. We remember the י yud by thinking of it as being young. Things that are young tend to be little like י yud. Also, both words have a beginning "y" sound.

Green Ya-rok    יָרֹק

Hand    Yad       יָד

Girl     Yal-dah יַלְדָּה

Boy     Yeh-led   יֶלֶד

Wine    Ya-yin    יַיִן

Israel Yis-ra-el  יִשְׂרָאֵל

The letter ט (tet) makes a "t" sound. As we have ת (tav) that makes the same sound, here is how we remember which is which.

ט Tet has a tear

and

ת Tav has a tail

Phone Tel-eh-phone טֶלֶפוֹן

Hike Tee-ul  טִיּוּל

Ring Ta-ba-at   טַבַּעַת

Good Tov    טוֹב

Tallit Ta-leet    טַלִּית

Nature Teh-va   טֶבַע

Tennis Teh-nees טֶנִיס

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! A NEW VOWEL TOO!

Drum roll please...announcing the arrival of a new vowel!  This new vowel makes an "O" sound and its dot can be found Over its body. It also has super powers that can make its body invisible.  If the body disappears but the dot is still over a letter we say "O",  

More Letters, More Fun!!

  ק  KOOF

ק Koof makes a "k" sound and has a Keshet (rainbow) . Your child now knows 2 letters that make a "k" sound, (koof) and (kaf). Here are some words that begin with a koof:

                                                       Rainbow      Keh-shet      קֶשֶׁת

                                                  Community    K-he-lah         קְהִלָּה

                                                       Monkey         Kof              קוֹף

           Small          Ka-tan             קָטָן

      Summer          Ka-yetz           קַיִץ

         Cold              Kar                   קַר

        Holy             Ka-dosh               קָדוֹשׁ

      TSADEE  צ

Our letter last week was the letter צ (tsadee). צ makes a "ts" sound. A way to remember צ is to look at the triangles that the letter creates. The triangles look like pizza slices that were removed. When you say the word pizza, the sound that is created by the "zz" sound is identical to that of the letter. Here are some words we learned this week:

Color     Tseh-va     צֶבַע

Bird        Tsee-por     צִפּוֹר

Turtle     Tsav         צָב

North      Tsa-phone        צָפוֹן

Frog       Tsfar-day-ah     צְפַרְדֵּעַ

Tzedakah                       צְדָקָה

Yellow       Tsa-hov          צָהֹוב

Can you believe we learned our third vowel?!
 

This week we learned the Hebrew vowel known as a "chirik". The vowel makes an "e" sound. For example, the sound that is created by the letter "e" in the the word k"e"y. Like our other 2 vowels it is found underneath the letter. Here are the ways I teach the kids to remember its sound.

1.) It's one dot so it's so "E"asy to remember. 
2.) Also, it looks like a single pea.

Sometimes this vowel is followed by the letter י (yud). Despite the addition of the י (yud) we still say only "e".

Judaics Update:  

Captain Chesed came for a visit and Mechina earned their Chesed Badges! WOOHOO!

 Kibud Av V'Em  (Honoring Your Father and Mother)

Last week in Judaics, we focused on the mitzvah of honoring our parents. We discussed all that our parents give to us, and all we can do to honor them.  Mechina learned that it is a commandment (mitzvah)  to honor your parents. In addition, we spoke about the ways we fulfill this mitzvah now, as well as how we can fulfill it in the future.  We are even finishing up a secret surprise for you! Shh....

ALEF & VAV & MITZVOT TOO!

The one and only א (ALEPH)

       We have officially learned the most famous letter in the Aleph-Bet, א (aleph). Aleph is different from the other letters we have learned because...א is silent unless it has a vowel. NO VOWEL= NO SOUND. Here are some very important and interesting א words.

Red       Ah-dom        אדום

Lion     Ar-yeh       אריה

Mom     E-mah     אמא

Dad       Ah-ba     אבּא

Food      Oh-chel    אכל

Spring    Ah-vev    אביב

Letter (in a word) Oh-t     אות

VAV

Vav makes a "v" sound, and looks like a ורד (vered:rose) It has a bud on the top and a thin stem. .  Be careful, lots of people think it's a reish.  You have to look for a short top on ו (vav).The following are the ו (vav) words that we learned this week.

Pink       Va-roh-d     ורוד

Forever     Va-ed     ועד

Curtain       Ve-lon       וילון

Rose         Veh-red     ורד

Drumroll Please...Our New Letter is DALET

ד makes a "d" sound and has a diving board. Once again, we had to use our eagle eyes to make sure that we didn't miss the diving board and mistake it for a ר (reish).

Words we learned that start with the letter ד:

Honey     D-vash       דבש

Door        Deh-let      דלת

Bee          D-vo-rah  דבורה

Flag         Deh-gel      דגל

Bear         Dov            דב

Fish         Dag             דג

Glue        Deh-vek      דבק

"5 Book Strut" by Noam Katz

Oh Yeah! More New Letters!

More New Letters

This week, the letter ב (vet) will be our focus.  Just like several other Hebrew letters, vet is a fraternal twin! Yep, ב (vet) is בּ (bet)'s twin.  It is very easy to tell they are in the same family because the only difference is that vet has no belly button.  A great way to remember the difference, is to say:

  A  בּ (bet)  WITHOUT a bellybutton is a ב (vet).

In the past few weeks Mechina has also learned the letters

 כ (chaf) and ר (reish).

• כ (chaf) is a fraternal twin to the letter  כּ (kaf).  כ makes a "ch" sound, think of l'CHaim.  The sound is created at the back of the throat.

• ר (reish) makes a "r" sound and has a round roof. The fact that its roof is round will be important later on.