We have been having a great time in Hebrew. Borrowing from an idea that I first saw through Behrman House*, we have been creating a rebus for common Hebrew words. A rebus combines pictures, and words or letters, to create a puzzle, or in our case, allows our students to read in a more fluid manner. The students took great ownership in creating the drawings that would represent particular words. We decided that the drawings should be simple and clear, and that their meaning could be easily deciphered. Here are some examples of the pictures we created for common Hebrew words used in prayer:

After we created the pictures, or as the students called them “prayer-moji”, “Hebr-oji”, we are still trying to create a great word for this, we created a rebus of the Blessing Before Haftarah. The students wrote out a combination of Hebrew text and the pictures to create this prayer. It was fun, challenging, and the students were really enthusiastic about using this technique again.

*Here the rebus which inspired this idea from Behrman House, a rebus for the 4 Questions “Mah Nishtana”:

Happenings in Trope

In Haftarah trope, we just completed our 4th clause, T’vir. T’vir is made up of Kadma, Darga, T’vir. Sometimes Mercha can substitute for Darga, and it has a similiar melody. To hear this clause chanted: