First day of Hebrew school was today!
Sep. 12th, 2004 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasWent surprisingly well. I tend to worry when things go this well. I really like co-teaching -- Tamara and I seem to be pretty good together.
I got the room put together a few nights ago. The room has a blackboard that is actually black, and sort of holds chalk marks. Which is better than it was before, when it was green, and didn't sort of hold chalk marks. It's not perfect, but it's better than it was. It's not as good as a big piece of rock would be, but it's okay. The new whiteboard looks nice, though. And the poster I made up with a giant gimmel, and all the kids' names in both Hebrew and English looks great.
(SHAYNA: Oooh! I wanna see what color you wrote my name in. . . . BROWN? How come I have to be brown?
IAN: I LIKE brown. Besides, I wrote my own name in black, and brown is better than black.)
Kids started showing up at 9:30. This is amazing, because school starts at 9:30. Okay, maybe if you're not Jewish, you don't understand what's so amazing about kids starting to show up at the time that they're supposed to, but trust me, it is.
I started out with an idea Rafi gave us at the teacher training day. I had a ball of tinfoil. I had kids stand in a circle, said, "I'm Ian," and tossed the ball to Tamara, who said, "I'm Tamara", and tossed the ball to one of the kids. They caught on pretty fast.
Once they were all pretty comfortable with that part, I made it a bit more complex. "I'm Ian, and you're Eli," and I threw it to Eli. Eli would say, "I'm Eli, and you're Ella," and so forth. We did that for a bit, which went pretty well. Most of the kids, of course, knew each other from being in class together for the past two or three years. Heck, I knew most of the kids, since this was the class that I taught two years ago, when I was the first grade teacher.
Once that started going smoothly, I changed it up once again. "Ani Y'honaton," and I threw it to someone else. Some of the kids didn't know their Hebrew names, but I knew them, so I was able to help them out.
Now, for the most part, these name games were primarily for the benefit of Tamara, and Rachel, who is a madricha helping out in the classroom. (Okay, two teachers and a teachers' aide is maybe a bit over-teachered for a seven-kid class, but there are worse problems to have. But if they can use Rachel somewhere else in the school, I'm more than willing to give her up.) After all, the kids and I had all had classes together previously.
So, we did this for a while, and then we went on to talk about the concept of "brit", and to try to hack out a class contract. I also wanted to tie this into the concept of Rosh Hashana, which I did with indifferent success.
Of course, the kids are smart-alecks.
IAN: Okay, does anyone know what the next holiday coming up is?
SHAYNA: Rosh Hashana!
IAN: That's right.
JULIAN (who's now going by Jules): No, it's actually Shabbat!
IAN: Rosh Hashana is Thursday. (Well, Wednesday night, it starts, but Thursday is the first day.)
JULIAN: Dang!
We talked a bit about why we were there, which went better than I expected -- that's ALWAYS a dangerous question, but the kids and I seem to understand each other pretty well. I KNOW that when I ask them, "Why do you come to Hebrew School," they will answer, "because my family makes me," and THEY know that I will follow up with, "And why does your family make you come here," so they just follow right up with that.
"Well, my mom makes me come. Because I'm Jewish, and so it's important for me to learn about being Jewish."
I mean, they don't even wait for me to ask the followup question, because they know I will, so they just answer it.
Tamara had prepped a Rosh Hashana art project, which we did next. She'd cut out cards in the shapes of shofarot, apples, honey pots, and the like, and kids could write or draw a picture of something they wished for the next year, inside.
I was impressed. Sure, there were a couple, "I wish for an iPod." But it was, "I wish for an iPod. And for the war in Iraq to be over, because it's just stupid and people are getting killed."
One of the kids looked worried, and pulled me aside and said that there was something zie wished for, but zie didn't want other people to know what it was. I said that was fine, and that zie could work at the desk over in the corner, instead of at the table with everyone else. And when zie was done, zie put it in the way back of a drawer in the desk, so nobody would accidentally see it, and, at the end of the day, zie took it with zir.
I have no idea what the card said, because it's none of my business. And I won't mention which kid it was. And I'm using gender-neutral pronouns to further hide the kid's identity.
That took us right to the time for snack. Mark and I played guitar for singing, and then we went back to our classrooms.
I asked the kids if they wanted to do another round of the name game with the tinfoil ball, and they enthusiastically agreed. We went through the simple rounds fairly quickly (I totally ignored their protests that the Hebrew version was too hard), and then told them that I was going to do an even harder version. And I completely ignored their protests at that.
"Okay," I said. "Watch carefully. Tamara and I are going to demonstrate this a few times, and I want you to raise your hands when you think you get it."
"Ani Y'honaton, aht Tamara." And I threw the ball to Tamara, who caught it, said, "Ani Tamara, atah Y'honaton." We did this a couple more times, and some of the kids started to raise their hands. We then included Rachel, the madricha, in the game, for another data point. "Ani Rachel, aht Tamara." "Ani Tamara, atah Y'honaton." "Ani Y'honaton, aht Rachel."
Some of the kids thought they got it, and so we let them try. They didn't get it the first couple tries, and then it clicked.
About half the class seemed to get it, and they explained it to the other half of the class. "If you're throwing to a boy, it's atah. If it's to a girl, it's aht!"
So we did that for a few more rounds, and everyone seemed to get it. We'll see if it sticks next week.
Then we pulled out some worksheets I'd written up, about the "bracha base" -- the six words that start most brachot. They got a bit of reading practice on that, and some practice copying letters.
That pretty much took us right up to t'filah, when we all got together for prayer. And, since it's Elul, one of the kids blew the shofar as part of t'filah.
It was a good thing I'd brought my shofar. Nobody could find the shofarot that the Temple has. . .
And that was the first day of class. It went far more smoothly than I had any right to expect, and I had a blast. I really missed teaching over the summer.
I got the room put together a few nights ago. The room has a blackboard that is actually black, and sort of holds chalk marks. Which is better than it was before, when it was green, and didn't sort of hold chalk marks. It's not perfect, but it's better than it was. It's not as good as a big piece of rock would be, but it's okay. The new whiteboard looks nice, though. And the poster I made up with a giant gimmel, and all the kids' names in both Hebrew and English looks great.
(SHAYNA: Oooh! I wanna see what color you wrote my name in. . . . BROWN? How come I have to be brown?
IAN: I LIKE brown. Besides, I wrote my own name in black, and brown is better than black.)
Kids started showing up at 9:30. This is amazing, because school starts at 9:30. Okay, maybe if you're not Jewish, you don't understand what's so amazing about kids starting to show up at the time that they're supposed to, but trust me, it is.
I started out with an idea Rafi gave us at the teacher training day. I had a ball of tinfoil. I had kids stand in a circle, said, "I'm Ian," and tossed the ball to Tamara, who said, "I'm Tamara", and tossed the ball to one of the kids. They caught on pretty fast.
Once they were all pretty comfortable with that part, I made it a bit more complex. "I'm Ian, and you're Eli," and I threw it to Eli. Eli would say, "I'm Eli, and you're Ella," and so forth. We did that for a bit, which went pretty well. Most of the kids, of course, knew each other from being in class together for the past two or three years. Heck, I knew most of the kids, since this was the class that I taught two years ago, when I was the first grade teacher.
Once that started going smoothly, I changed it up once again. "Ani Y'honaton," and I threw it to someone else. Some of the kids didn't know their Hebrew names, but I knew them, so I was able to help them out.
Now, for the most part, these name games were primarily for the benefit of Tamara, and Rachel, who is a madricha helping out in the classroom. (Okay, two teachers and a teachers' aide is maybe a bit over-teachered for a seven-kid class, but there are worse problems to have. But if they can use Rachel somewhere else in the school, I'm more than willing to give her up.) After all, the kids and I had all had classes together previously.
So, we did this for a while, and then we went on to talk about the concept of "brit", and to try to hack out a class contract. I also wanted to tie this into the concept of Rosh Hashana, which I did with indifferent success.
Of course, the kids are smart-alecks.
IAN: Okay, does anyone know what the next holiday coming up is?
SHAYNA: Rosh Hashana!
IAN: That's right.
JULIAN (who's now going by Jules): No, it's actually Shabbat!
IAN: Rosh Hashana is Thursday. (Well, Wednesday night, it starts, but Thursday is the first day.)
JULIAN: Dang!
We talked a bit about why we were there, which went better than I expected -- that's ALWAYS a dangerous question, but the kids and I seem to understand each other pretty well. I KNOW that when I ask them, "Why do you come to Hebrew School," they will answer, "because my family makes me," and THEY know that I will follow up with, "And why does your family make you come here," so they just follow right up with that.
"Well, my mom makes me come. Because I'm Jewish, and so it's important for me to learn about being Jewish."
I mean, they don't even wait for me to ask the followup question, because they know I will, so they just answer it.
Tamara had prepped a Rosh Hashana art project, which we did next. She'd cut out cards in the shapes of shofarot, apples, honey pots, and the like, and kids could write or draw a picture of something they wished for the next year, inside.
I was impressed. Sure, there were a couple, "I wish for an iPod." But it was, "I wish for an iPod. And for the war in Iraq to be over, because it's just stupid and people are getting killed."
One of the kids looked worried, and pulled me aside and said that there was something zie wished for, but zie didn't want other people to know what it was. I said that was fine, and that zie could work at the desk over in the corner, instead of at the table with everyone else. And when zie was done, zie put it in the way back of a drawer in the desk, so nobody would accidentally see it, and, at the end of the day, zie took it with zir.
I have no idea what the card said, because it's none of my business. And I won't mention which kid it was. And I'm using gender-neutral pronouns to further hide the kid's identity.
That took us right to the time for snack. Mark and I played guitar for singing, and then we went back to our classrooms.
I asked the kids if they wanted to do another round of the name game with the tinfoil ball, and they enthusiastically agreed. We went through the simple rounds fairly quickly (I totally ignored their protests that the Hebrew version was too hard), and then told them that I was going to do an even harder version. And I completely ignored their protests at that.
"Okay," I said. "Watch carefully. Tamara and I are going to demonstrate this a few times, and I want you to raise your hands when you think you get it."
"Ani Y'honaton, aht Tamara." And I threw the ball to Tamara, who caught it, said, "Ani Tamara, atah Y'honaton." We did this a couple more times, and some of the kids started to raise their hands. We then included Rachel, the madricha, in the game, for another data point. "Ani Rachel, aht Tamara." "Ani Tamara, atah Y'honaton." "Ani Y'honaton, aht Rachel."
Some of the kids thought they got it, and so we let them try. They didn't get it the first couple tries, and then it clicked.
About half the class seemed to get it, and they explained it to the other half of the class. "If you're throwing to a boy, it's atah. If it's to a girl, it's aht!"
So we did that for a few more rounds, and everyone seemed to get it. We'll see if it sticks next week.
Then we pulled out some worksheets I'd written up, about the "bracha base" -- the six words that start most brachot. They got a bit of reading practice on that, and some practice copying letters.
That pretty much took us right up to t'filah, when we all got together for prayer. And, since it's Elul, one of the kids blew the shofar as part of t'filah.
It was a good thing I'd brought my shofar. Nobody could find the shofarot that the Temple has. . .
And that was the first day of class. It went far more smoothly than I had any right to expect, and I had a blast. I really missed teaching over the summer.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-12 08:12 pm (UTC)And now...back to transliterating to learn letters. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-12 10:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-13 05:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-13 05:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-13 06:02 am (UTC)(+2 to fright checks, +6 to making walls fall down...)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-16 02:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-13 06:35 am (UTC)