Torah School - Lech Lecha

Torah School for Lech Lecha.

 

We had a slightly shorter week this week, because I had to run errands one day, but I have some exciting things to share. We started something new this week that went tremendously well. I added hebrew words of the week to our morning board. At the top I wrote the title of the torah portion in hebrew, and then chose two everyday words that we could practice in our conversation. I chose abba and eema, daddy and momma. Daddy and Gramma got in on the action and practiced all week, too. On review day today, they wrote the hebrew words of the week as part of their score.

Some other fun things we did:

We made paper tents for Abraham and Sarah to live in.

We got out the history books and learned about ancient Sumer.  The kids drew pictures of ziggurats, Sumerian princesses, and jewelry.  Then we made playdo cuineform tablets.

My children discovered the wonderful world of puzzles.  I got them several 24 and 48 piece puzzles very cheap on errand day.  They have not gotten tired of them yet.

We also printed off a bunch of pictures of ancient sandals.  They colored, cut, glued, and collagededed.  That's a word, isn't it?

Oh, and I had an epiphany!  I was having a mental block.  Every week we have a list of great topics to study that match the torah portion, but next week there's a whole new list.  How do we work in a longer study?  For example, in Vayeira next week, a study of the seashore is suggested.  My kids would love that and we haven't studied it in depth in the past.  I looked ahead at Chayei Sarah and didn't see anything of great interest to us right now.  So we'll just keep studying the seashore, in particular, tidal pools.  When I began reading "Pagoo" which we will be basing our study on, I knew we would need three weeks.  So we will cover the torah portion each week on Sabbath, and continue our tidal pool study for three weeks.  So try it!  If a topic just really fits for your family, keep going with it!  Those other great topics will be waiting for you until next year or even another torah portion.

Shabbat Shalom, and have a great week teaching your children the blessings of torah and the creation of YHVH!

PS:  Our hebrew words for this week are: mayim (water) and chalab (milk).