Bonding over Hebrew

On a lighter note, who knew that the thing many adults find most daunting about conversion to Judaism – learning enough liturgical / Biblical Hebrew to have a clue what's going on when you attend a prayer service or when you (heaven forbid) conduct your own at home – would be one of the biggest bonding opportunities with the kids? 

My kindergartener, in particular, is thrilled to find that he already has a Hebrew name, so much so that he insisted on printing his name in Hebrew letters alongside the English ones on his all about me poster for school:

(I outlined the letters in pencil, he did all the marker-ing) 

Our synagogue, like many, follows its hour of traditional "Sunday school" on Sunday mornings with an hour of "Hebrew school". This means they learn some Hebrew there but we have to reinforce it at home. Monday and/or Wednesday night's have become Hebrew-with-Dad nights for three of our four boys, and it turns out they love it. Our oldest two have a workbook they are working through and I occasionally find other things for them to work on. The youngest is just working on his Alef Bet, and asked me to make him a study strip, kindergarten classroom style, to help with that:


You wouldn't believe how excited he was when I surprised him with it. Crazy. 

So my latest project is to look up Hebrew words that start with each letter and have the kids make illustrated cards so we can remember the word and what it means, and and use that to help remember each letter. Unlike a lot of today's Hebrew word books for kids, I'm sticking to words that get significant play in the prayers or the bible – after all, I don't see is going to the zoo and starting to talk about all of the animals on Hebrew. Maybe next year. 

So, in the spirit of bragging on my kids, here are the first few letter cards:


From right to left ('cause that's how we roll in Hebrew school): 'ohel = tent, bayit = house (more commonly vowelized as bet … = house of …), and gephen = grapevine

And then, from a slightly older kid, magen = shield 


Shabbat shalom, everyone!

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