Our kindergarten students learn the Hebrew alphabet right along with the English alphabet. They practice proper letter formation, learn the sound each letter makes and master sight words.
They were recently introduced to the letters resh and gimmel.
Students were quickly able to recognize the letter resh in the words Rakevet (train), Rosh (head), Rimon (pomegranate), Ru-ah (wind) and Regel-Raglayim (foot-feet), and the letter gimel in the words Gamal (camel), Gadol (big), Gezer (carrot), G’vina ( cheese).
For a listening activity for the letter resh we read the story The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss in Hebrew (translated by Datya Dor). The students had a great time making the letter resh with their own raglayim (feet).
For the letter gimmel we heard the story Eliezer Vehagezer (Eliezer and the Carrot). After we listened to the story, we spread g’vina (cheese) on crackers and wrote the letter gimmel with gezer (carrot). It was fun to eat the letter gimmel.
For the letter resh the students created a rakevet (train) in the shape of a resh and filled it with words that start with the letter resh.
When we discussed the shape of the letter gimmel, the students discovered that when they put two gimmels together, they can make a gamal (a camel).
We ended our study about resh with the rakevet song.