How Far We Have Come
It is amazing to me how far we have come this year, and how much your students have achieved, even with all of the innate challenges of being remote. As it is now April 12th, we have just 4 more weeks of Hebrew and Religious School at TBI for this year. We have just completed our K’hillah/Community unit and this Sunday, we will begin our final unit of the year, Chesed. Check out this introductory video to learn a bit more about this unit:
In order to give our students more time to focus on Trope, there will be no further Flipgrid assignments on Sundays for the LaBriut curriculum.
We will conclude our learning this year with an in-person, socially distanced last day, on Sunday, May 9th at TBI, which will include the dedication of the Religious School in Rabbi Weinberg’s honor. Lori Sagarin, our Director of Congregational Learning, will be sending out more information about the last day in her school newsletter.
Haftarah Trope – Hebrew School
We have continued working on our Haftarah trope clauses each Wednesday, as well as focusing on the Blessings before and after Haftarah. As always, there are videos and audio recordings to help your students practice all of this material after class, they can be found with all of the materials on the Trope page of the blog. The students demonstrate their understanding of these clauses and blessings through their assignments on Flipgrid. For the last few weeks, we have focused on:
Katon Clause #2: https://flipgrid.com/fc219f03
T’vir Clause: https://flipgrid.com/60b39f77
R’vii Clause #1: https://flipgrid.com/cffa8060
and this week we will introduce, R’vii Clause #2: https://flipgrid.com/65053cca
In addition, to make the learning of the blessings for Haftarah simpler and easier to comprehend, we have broken up the blessings accordingly on Flipgrid:
Blessing Before Haftarah: https://flipgrid.com/bd2d6fad
Blessing After Haftarah 1st paragraph: https://flipgrid.com/c655bd8d
Blessing After Haftarah 2nd paragraph: https://flipgrid.com/b6f39502
Blessing After Haftarah 3rd paragraph: https://flipgrid.com/561f7a35
As we did with the Torah unit earlier in the year, to assess each student’s comprehension of Haftarah, we have a final 2-part Haftarah Trope Challenge (HTC) that will be due at the end of the school year, by Sunday, May 9. The Haftarah Trope Challenge asks the students to demonstrate their ability to chant Haftarah trope as well as the Blessings before and after Haftarah. Along with the Torah Trope Challenge, the HTC assesses your student’s readiness to begin the process of working on their B’nai Mitzvah portions.
Part 1 of the Haftarah Trope Challenge https://flipgrid.com/77df4d59 is chanting the Blessings Before and After Haftarah in HEBREW, using the appropriate melody. The blessing before is chanted in Hebrew using Haftarah trope, the blessing after is chanted in Hebrew using its own unique melody. Your learner can practice for this challenge using these videos:
Part 2 of the Haftarah Trope Challenge https://flipgrid.com/2d1c70b1 is demonstrating their ability to chant 5 of the 6 clauses of Haftarah trope (hand signs are optional). To do this, we have asked the students to chant 3 verses of Haftarah from the example we have been studying this year, Isaiah chapter 54. The students will need to chant in TROPE verses 6-8 of chapter 54. They should chant the last Sof-Pasuk clause of verse 8 as a Sof Sof-Pasuk (as if it were the end of the reading). 
Learners can practice their clauses using the videos on the trope page, or the audio recordings here: https://soundcloud.com/marla-aviva-bentley/sets/haftarah-clauses. Both parts of the Haftarah Trope Challenge are due by Sunday, May 9. Each is worth 150 MP, for a total of 300 MP.
As always, Morah Erin and I are here to help if your learner needs any extra assistance!