The first part of this term has been a busy one in Year 2!

We jumped right into learning about Rosh Hashanah then Yom Kippur, and Succot.  It was a busy first few weeks!
During Succot , Year 2 joined the Juniors upstairs in the Synagogue every morning for Hallel and they did a fantastic job participating even though it was their first introduction to singing Hallel.

After Succot we began our Jewish Calendar studies. We now know our days of the week in Hebrew, as well as in which month the Shalosh Regalim (three foot festivals – i.e. Pesach, Shavuot and Succot) fall.  We did a little work on the cycle of the moon but plan to go over it in more detail at the end of this term.

We have begun to add to our daily Teffilot and have started with Aleinu. We look forward to joining in with the Juniors when we sing Hallel together on Rosh Chodesh.

We have reviewed all the Shevah rules that were taught in Year 1 and now that we have a good grasp of them we are ready to learn some new ones and are well on our way to reading Hebrew accurately.

The Shevah rules we have learnt so far are:

•  A shevah at the beginning of a word is LOUD (aka.  Shevah Nah i.e. pronouced).
• A shevah in the middle of a word is QUIET (aka. Shevah Nach i.e. as if there is no vowel).
• Two Sheva’s next to each other, the first is QUIET, the second is LOUD.
• Two similar letters next to each other and the first one has a Shevah, the Shevah is LOUD.
• A Shevah under a letter with a dagesh (dot inside) is LOUD.

 The highlight of our week is learning the Parashah, and we are starting to build up our family tree. We already know that Avraham married Sarah, and had a son called Yitzchak. However, Avraham also married a woman – if fact she was Sarah’s maidservant – called Hagar and together with Avraham had a son called Yishmael.  Yitzchak married Rivkah.  After half term, we will learn who their children were.  Stay tuned!