The Week That Was.... Week 1

Well, we have successfully completed our first week of learning for the new school year.  We have been reading a chapter or two from The Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence.  This is a series of novels we started last year while studying Ancient Rome and the children love them.  So, until we start our Middle Ages History stories, we will continue with these books.  Then the kids can read them in their own time if they want to finish the series.

Micah and Atarah have been doing Hebrew for 1 hour each day.  This includes one lesson from their reader where they learn a new letter, practice reading and hearing the new sounds, and reading a small text in English about Israel.  Then they have two small workbooks where they learn to write the hebrew letter, practice more reading and have a fun exercise to reinforce what they have already learned.  So far we have covered the letters:  ש (shin), ב (bet), ת (tav), ל (lamed) and מם (mem, mem sofit), with the "ah" and "oh" sounding vowels.  They are reading the letters well and get excited when they sound out words like Shabbat and Shalom!

Tirzah has been sitting at the table (painting, drawing, play dough...) while we do the Hebrew lessons and copies the Hebrew sounds that she is hearing (sha, ba, la, ma...).  I'm sure she will be speaking the language as fast as the other kids, with the reading and writing coming later.

We also began her "lessons" from Brightly Beaming Resources: Preparatory Curriculum. This week we had the Theme of Cows, so we painted pictures of cows, sang Old MacDonald had a farm and  Hey Diddle Diddle, learnt the letter A, the letter א (alef), and the number 1 and the square shape.  We read stories with cows and made a picture of a cow out of squares.  It was a fun week and Atarah loved helping me "teach" Tirzah.







Here are a couple of pictures of Tirzah's learning board and some of her artwork.