Round and Round the Jewish Year: A Review

Just for “fun,” ie to relieve the Three Weeks tedium (despite the fact that we’re really not supposed to have anything new or delightful), I went out today and bought our second in a not-yet-fully-published series called Round and Round the Jewish Year by Tziporah Rosenberg, with illustrations by Ruth Beifus. (published by Feldheim / Sifriyat Sharsheret)

It’s not bad. There are stories, poems, pesukim and pictures for each of the major events of the year, grouped by month and presented in a nice, logical order with good flow and segues between the sections.

Everything is nicely laid out with great illustrations that are free from the “weirdness” that plagues a lot of Jewish and Israeli books. I especially like the cover picture, with each month represented by a little yeshiva bochur doing or holding something to represent the month. Pictures include men, women and children of both sexes, which has become a major criterion for me since realizing that a lot of frum publications now

Mommies are drawn wearing tichels so it’s obvious that their hair is covered, and that’s just fine by me, because that’s how I cover my hair.

The book’s text offers more or less readable, literate English. (more or less: a description of the Shalosh Regalim in Yerushalayim includes this poem: “There was a special place / With always plenty space. / Jews came from far away / They all had room to stay.”)

I don’t want to mock, though, because really these are a more-than-decent introduction to the passage of Jewish time. I love the fact that there are still sections covering the months in which there is no major hooplah – a discussion of rain and the water cycle in Cheshvan, for instance. So many kids’ books jump from Sukkos to Chanukah to Purim with nothing in between.

We have volume 2 (Cheshvan-Shevat) and volume 4 (Iyar-Av) of these books so far; I don’t know how many have been published yet… perhaps all of them by now. I’m excited about accumulating the rest, and at $19.99 for a hardcover kids’ book, the price per volume isn’t terrible.

These are a great early introduction to the holidays for kids who are too young for the Chagaynu series, which I also like a lot for older kids (and which would probably be very useful from a homeschool perspective because there are quizzes, crafts and other types of material).

Comments

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page. As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah : the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science : Plants, Animals, Human Body Math Ambleside : Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature Science General Poems for Elemental Science . Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful. Three pages are included: one page with two po

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad. She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel. She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.” I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community. Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos. Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach . Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a

Adventures in Mama-Land

Search This Blog