Posted in Grade 1 Reading

Homework at last…

Shalom,laptop reading

Now that we have practiced reading and recording on Classkick in class, we are ready to begin our homework. 

As mentioned during our Back to School Night, the homework this year will be on Classkick. The children recieved a “Machberet Kree-ah” where they have the QR code and the code for the required Classkick booklet. We will be using this “Machberet Kree-ah” in school as well, so make sure it returns to school daily. 

Adding to the reading I may record additional instructions on the classkick page itself. For example to find a specific word, highlight it and/or copy it into the Machberet Kreeah. This will be as an extra challenge for those who choose to do it.

The links, sounds and page numbers will also be provided here, on the blog,  on a weekly basis. 

This week we begin with only two pages (4 letters):

1A Classkick Code: UG8BGF        1B Classkick Code: DHMEMC

Monday and Tuesday: Page 4 (Tah & T)

Wednesday and Thursday: Page 5 (Sah & S)

I am reminding you that there is a recording of the page to help review it. In order to use it best, encourage your child to use a finger or a cursor to follow along as s/he listens and repeats the sounds and words. 

The children are encouraged to record themselves as they read daily; however, the requirement is to record the last two lines twice a week.

If your child does not record daily, I ask that you sign the page on the Classkick. Click on the T (Text) or use the pencil option. You bring it to the Signature line and type/sign with stylus or finger. Once homework is done (includes recording or signature), remind your child to press on the green hand to show me it is complete. 

Finally, I want to remind you, this should not take more than 5-10 minutes at the most. lets keep it fun and please let me know if it is taking too long. You can email me or leave a note on the page itself (recorded or written)

Toda,

Morah Ada. 🙂

Posted in Uncategorised

Welcom to Kitah Alef

Hi everyone!

It has been a busy busy begining in Kitah Alef already, as we had all our Tishrei holidays mixed in with learning new routines and geting to know each other better.

This has been our first full week at school and it is amazing to see how our routines and leadership skills are already falling into place, assisting us in having productive and fun lessons together.

We are all working together on helping each other be our best. 

So far, our Kitah Alef students are demonstarting kindness, patience, respect, curiousity, and so much more that makes it a joy to learn together. We are looking forward to seeing you on our Back to school night this coming Tuesday.

Grade 1 Team.

Posted in Uncategorised

Hebrew Chatter in Chatterpix

As I wrote in the past… one of the most difficult part of teaching Hebrew is getting the students to speak and I am always on the lookout for new and fun ways that will encourage them to do so, mistakes and all…

This week I introduced them to Chatterpix – a free app where they can make an object talk.  They were very excited and those who had the chance to complete one, asked to do another one! success! they want to speak. 😉

Next step for me… what else can I use it for?

Reading with intonation to show comprehension

provide information about a place or an object.

Here are few examples of what we did so far:

You can see more here.

 

 

Posted in Jewish Studies

WordArt as a conversation starter…

אָבִיב הִגִיעַ פֶּסַח בָּא

I am always searching for new ways to get my students speaking (Hebrew of course) in class.  These days I am participating in a digital pedagogy course to increase student proficiency in exactly that – speaking Hebrew.  This week I was introduced to the use of WordArt as a fun way to review/introduce vocabulary and encourage discussion. The idea of Word clouds/art is not new to me; however, in the past I used it more as a decorative tool at end of units, to show the vocabulary we learnt.  This time it is used as a review tool and a conversation starter. 

We will begin by looking at the shape (see bellow):

  • What is it?
  • What is it made out of?

At this point I will show them that when you put the cursor on a word it expands to help find the words… go ahead try it… 😉 

  • What words do you see/recognize? etc…
  • Lets think of the 4 names of Passover that we learned this week.. Each name is made of two words: 
    • Can you find them?
    • What word repeats itself in every name?
    • What other words do you see?
    • Which of the four names do they suit best? 
    • Can you also find words to build a sentence from a song we learned?

In class, this will all be done in Hebrew of course, working on use of learned vocabulary and use of (simple) full sentences.  I am looking forward to seeing how this will work…. 

Posted in Jewish Studies

Tu Bishvat Same’ach

What a fun day we had today with Kitah Bet. We heard about Eliezer Ben Yehuda and some of the words he invented, we excercised in Hebrew and danced as trees. Morah Batya lead us in guided drawing and then we created some beautiful trees with fruit and vegetables for our snack. We even had ALL our teachers (yes! even the English and french teachers) read us a story in Hebrew. What a special day! Even during online learning!

Bellow is the Slides we used with all the links to the videos/stories, etc as requested by some of our stidents.

Posted in Jewish Studies

Hanukkah Week…

Bitmoji ImageHappy 5th night of Hanukkah everyone,

Can you guess what our focus wil be this week…? Hanukkah fun of course 😉
We will continue following our routine in class, including being introduced to each sounds daily; however. As it is Hanukkah, and your evenings may be filled with deep frying, candle lighting and dreidle spinning there is no official homework. It goes without saying that reading daily is beneficial and encouraged but is not a requirement this week. 

happy hanukkah

Calendar alert:
1. Tuesday at 7:00pm we will have a virtual OJCS Family Hanukkah Celebration. We hope you can join us. 

2. Friday is PJ day and we will be having a pancake breakfast in Kitah Alef during the 1st period. Please send some fruit for your child to have with it. 

Have a wonderful week, filled with light and sweetness.
Posted in Jewish Studies, Jewish Studies Reading

Hanukkah is near…

Bitmoji ImageShalom Kitah Alef families,

As the second term of this interesting year begins, we are getting excited for Hanukkah that is getting near…

By the end of this week we will be recording our Hanukkah song (Banu Choshech Legaresh) and share it with our wider community during the Candle Lighting Ceremonies. I am not sure which date we will be on., but you will get to see it during our own candle lighting ceremony on Tuesday, Dec 15th at 7:00pm.

We are continuing with our daily reading homework (this week pages 9 to 12 in the choveret Kree-ah) and there are also fun stories to read (or listen to) in my bitmoji classroom, where I add books we read in class, or ones they are ready to read on their own.

Wednesday we will participate as one class following the Wednesday schedule from the distance learning page. Part of my lesson will be having the children find and show objects/foods that relate to Chanukah, so you may want to make sure you have a Chanukiya (Menorah), Sevivon (dreidle), candles, etc… out where they can find it… (please do not gather it ahead of time. The fun is in the search.

Also, I will be introducing this Wordwall game with an opening sound. You need to know what it is to know which is the opening sound… 😉 You can join your child in the fun.