Adventures in Mama-Land

The biggest musical sensation here in Israel this winter / spring is a small and strange song called “Geshem, Geshem,” written by Jihan Jaber, an Israeli Arab Hebrew teacher who wanted to give her students an easy, fun way to learn Hebrew. And if she can use it to teach kids Hebrew… why can’t you? GZ is totally into the darbuka, a simple little drum that apparently he’s been learning in music class at school.  This is the original and easiest accompaniment for this song (see video below), but really, whatever percussion instrument you have will do. I’ve created a cute little mini-book that you can print, staple, and read / sing with kids. There’s also a completely blank version so kids can add their own illustrations before cutting out the individual pages.  I’ve moved the text a little here so there’s as much room for creativity as possible on each page:

Maybe you’re invited for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah.  Maybe you’re drawn to Judaism and want to find out more.  Or maybe you just want to support a Jewish friend or family member? Whatever the reason, if you don’t know an alef from a bet (those are letters!), you might be wondering about going to synagogue and what you might see there… especially if you’re bringing kids with you.  Here are 5 important guidelines that’ll help you get grounded.  They’re adapted from my new book, Now You Know:  Rosh Hashanah for Kids , on sale for 99 cents until the end of June. The least you should know: Most synagogues ask men and boys to cover their heads, using a yarmulke (kippah) or some other type of hat. (Do this even if you’re not Jewish.) Girls and women should dress modestly, wearing skirts that fall below the knee. Most Jewish men wear a tallit - a striped white shawl that covers their shoulders. (In some communities, only married men wear a tallit.) Some syn...

Want to see something cool? Both of my kids’ schools are making a huge deal out of something I’ve literally never noticed.  The name of the current Hebrew month, Kislev (כסלו), can be divided - with only a little wizardry - into two separate words:  kis (כיס/pocket) and lev (לב/heart).  (That’s the wizardry – the “vav” is swapped out for a “vais”/”vet”.) So GZ brought home this “mitzvah note” project from Kitah Alef (Grade One), where we have to use this month fill up his “pocket” with love and nachas. Which I think is just an absolutely terrific excuse to praise a kid who’s three months into his first real year of school and hovering halfway between feeling confident because he knows the routines and feeling like he’s drowning in the despair that comes from realizing there are so many months (and years) still to go. Very cool.  Why didn’t they do this at either of my kids’ Jewish schools back in Canada?  No idea. A good friend of mine growing up, who mov...

  My mother has a joke.  Maybe you’ve heard it before? So a guy goes to the doctor.  Says, “Doctor, it hurts when I go like this.” And the doctor says, “So don’t go like that.” This was almost literally my conversation today, with my second orthopedist this month, about the unbearable pain in my right foot. My problem is that it only hurts when I’m barefoot.  Put on a pair of shoes and I’m Wonder Woman.  I leave everybody in my dust.  Take them off… and I’m Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma, barely able to get out of bed. This pain has a name:  PTTI.  That’s its name in Hebrew, too.  Posterior Tibial Tendon Insufficiency.  Don’t Google it; the pictures are horrific and mine really isn’t that bad (see below).  Basically, it means that the flat feet I’ve had my whole life have bottomed out completely.  So today I met with Ortho #2, Specialist Foot Ortho Guy.  Ortho #1 was a regular ortho, non-specialist.  Both v...

  So did I mention we’re homeschooling again? At least for the summer.  Does that make me the kind of wannabe / poseur I hate?  Or an earnest parent trying hard to make something work during weird, transitional times… I’m not sure what the answer is, but I thought I’d share a quick update on how things are going this summer with our “homeschooling / summerschooling” plans.  (It was originally going to be quick – sorry!!) It remains to be seen whether we’re going to do this long-term.  But the truth is, it feels very good.  Very, very good. In some areas, we’re picking up exactly where we left off.  But mostly, things slipped a lot during the year.  The only area in which both kids are further ahead (besides Hebrew!) is math. I had a few clear criteria before we started:

If there’s one thing that causes hand-wringing and hair-pulling in the Torah homeschooling world, it’s choosing a siddur. It makes sense, doesn’t it? We’re passionate about educating our kids, We’re passionate about Judaism, Tefillah (prayer) is an important cornerstone of Judaism.  Therefore… The siddur we choose is critical. Hence the hair-pulling.  (or tichel-pulling, as the case may be) Complicating things is the fact that many homeschooling parents are baalei teshuvah (newly-observant) or geirim (converts), who may not know the text or its meaning and might feel insecure about sharing these things with their kids. Since my own personal favourite grown-up siddur is my Koren / Sacks siddur, I was thrilled to receive review copies of two new kids’ siddurs from Koren Publishers.  One, the Koren Children’s Siddur, is for young kids, the other, Ani Tefillah, is aimed more at middle grades and high schoolers.  The distinctive Koren fonts and layout have been...

(Or, how I secretly want to continue homeschooling once we arrive in Israel… but you knew that already, didn’t you?) I wasn’t sure where to post this, and actually began posting it to my aliyah blog , but decided it was more homeschooly, so now I’m switching it to here. Homeschooling is legal in Israel, but we have already decided we cannot do it – and, more importantly, that it’s in the kids’ best interests to go to school.  I posted about this before (apparently in July 2011, so we’re probably due for an update) but I will sum up the 3 main reasons: Socialization – not in general, because homeschooled kids DO socialize, but they will need to make friends fast and although there are chugim (extra-curricular activities), youth groups, shul, and homeschooler get-togethers,  school is the best way to do that. Language – I want them to learn Hebrew immediately.  School is perhaps a brutal way to do that, but it’s fast and everybody says they become fluent within months...

Doing this early because a) we’re going away, and b) it’s not too hard to do these when I’m on a roll.  Next week’s 6-page workbook focuses on the following Hebrew / English words: הִכָּה- hit יָד - hand סֶּלַע - rock רוּם  - raise מַטֵּה – stick, staff פַּעַם - time (but not telling time!) יָצָא - come out שָׁתָה - drink Grammar notes include suffixes for gender and possession (I describe it in a kid-friendly way, I promise!) and the “ayim” plural for twos. Here’s a sneak preview: As always, if you use these and they work, or don’t work, please let me know how I can make them even better.  And since I am not a professional, please let me know if you spot any booboos – I promise I won’t hold it against you. To download these and hundreds of other free Limudei Kodesh (Jewish) printables – including weekly parsha copywork and holiday resources, click here .  (search for “parsha skills”) For General Studies printables, including science, art and music resourc...

This week’s 6 pages of worksheets focus on the following Hebrew / English words: פָּתַח - opened פֶּה - mouth בָּלַע - swallowed אָדָּם - man, person קרַֹח - Korach רְכוּשׁ - possession, stuff אֵת - [not in English!] אֲשֶּׁר - that,which Points of grammar include feminine prefixes / suffixes and the role of the preposition אֵת.  (In case you didn’t know, it “introduces a semantically definite direct object” – yeah, that didn’t help me, either.)  Here’s a sneak preview: As always, if you use these and they work, or don’t work, please let me know how I can make them even better!  Oh, and since I’m not a grammarian or anything close, please let me know if you spot any booboos.  Yes, it’s been known to happen, even to the best of us. To download these and hundreds of other Limudei Kodesh (Jewish) printables – including weekly parsha copywork and holiday resources, click here .  (search for “parsha skills”) For General Studies printables, including science, a...

Haven’t done one of these in a good while, but at least I have come up with a catchy name for them:  Parsha Skills Worksheets (click to see previous worksheets). My goal with these is to introduce some basic Chumash vocabulary and grammar (to kids AND their parents!), reinforce it through fun activities, and give kids the confidence to read/write an actual passuk from each weekly parsha.  Somebody at the Torah Home Ed Conference mentioned dictation, and although I hadn’t given it much thought in connection with these, it seems like a fairly natural progression, so I have added a note at the end of the last page, following the “spelling test” (which is in itself a form of dictation):  If student is very comfortable with the vocabulary, dictate the copywork verse to him/her. Read it aloud twice first, very slowly. Then, let the student write (on a lined page) as much as he/she remembers. Praise the student for effort, not exact duplication of the passuk. By the way, I ...

I thought it would be cool to help build Hebrew vocabulary through learning Hebrew folksongs.  I picked three that seem “important” to me and put together a few activities to reinforce the vocabulary taught in each one. Though there is a line-by-line translation provided for each song (along with a link to hear the song), these do assume some knowledge of Hebrew, or at least, access to a decent dictionary. Part I:  Menorah v’Anfei Zayit  (3 pages) /  מנורה וענפי זית    Part II:  Eretz Yisrael Sheli (7 pages) / ארץ ישראל שלי To download these and hundreds of other General Studies printables, including science, art and music resources in Hebrew and English, Ambleside, composer and artist resources, click here .  (give me a few minutes to post the link… :-) ) For Limudei Kodesh (Jewish) printables – including weekly parsha copywork and holiday resources, click here .

Do you have a Hebrew workbook you love???  I’d love to hear what you’re using in the comments… I’m always excited to find more excellent resources that work for homeschooling families! It’s not what I ordered, but I’m happy to have chosen a Hebrew book which I think will be a good next-step for Gavriel Zev. For the last few months, we’ve been working our way through Shalom Alef-Bet , from Behrman House, which worked fine, along with a bunch of sample pages from Journeys Through the Alef-Bet , by Torah Aura, which I liked very much (download a free 30-page sample here , though the link isn’t working for me at the moment; maybe they take their site down for Shabbos). The next-up Torah Aura book that seemed most in line with the methods and “feel” of Journeys Through the Alef-Bet is one called Tiyulim (journeys, in Hebrew; the link is NOT to the one I bought – see more below).  They offer four variations:  print and script, home and classroom.  The classroom books...

If you’ve always wanted to study Pirkei Avos with your kids but never knew where to start, I’ve put together a collection of activities for a range of ages, along with a general introduction to teaching Pirkei Avos, which may or may not be helpful (can you tell I’m feeling both humble and overwhelmed these days?).  This only covers 3 mishnayos (short excerpts) from Perek 4 (Chapter 4), so it’s not at ALL comprehensive, and it isn’t meant to be.  This is really just a sample to give folks an idea of the sorts of things you can do to engage your kids in both the text and the ideas behind Pirkei Avos.  I incorporated a few ideas from chinuch.org along with some thoughts of my own.  I was asked to put this together for a binder of “lesson plans” being assembled for the upcoming Torah Home Education Conference, about which I am feeling somewhat bittersweet, since it’s my last time attending.  I really hope that the rest of the lesson plans they are more, well, pla...