Last week we learned the Hebrew rules: 1)right to left; and 2) up/down/over. We also talked about the phoneme combinations... all Hebrew sounds can be broken down into letter/vowel or letter/vowel/letter groupings. We practiced using these rules using English letters... students were asked to write at least five household objects using these rules.
In Torah study we introduced our book, Explorer's Bible Book 1. In the story of creation we talked about the "it was evening then morning the next day" and how that relates to how we celebrate holidays starting at sundown on the day before the holiday... and how G-d called all of his creations "good" after they were made. This is a key concept that we'll explore in more detail in the next few weeks. We are focusing on how G-d made us all good by default and it's up to us to make decisions that will either let us do good or evil throughout our lives.
In Judaics we carried the 'good' theme forward and talked a lot about the idea of Study/Charity/Prayer. We want them to understand why study is the most important of the 3 and how we are commanded to do all three...
Today (Wednesday 9/2) we learned our first Hebrew letter, shin. I was very impressed with how much of the letters the kids remembered from past years... they were able to read some of the words in our text book!! This is great! I challenged them to finish the whole alef-bet by the end of February.. if they can accomplish this timeline we'll have a party when we're done.
Homework tonight is Lesson 1a and Lesson 1b in our workbook. You can also access the pages online if your child misplaced it or if they weren't in class. I also sent home the Parent's Guide.. use this as a reference if your Hebrew is a bit rusty
Have fun, safe, and healthy weekend and see you on Wednesday!! (no Sunday school this week due to the Labor Day holiday)
