the Torah in your heart... (Parashah Nitzavim-Vayeilech)

Pertaining to Parashah Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20) 

and Vayeilech (Deuteronomy 31:1-20)

This seemed like a busy week for us in Torah school. To start off, we learned "The Listening Song" which we will continue to sing. (It's from an educational e-book I downloaded from Scholastic's Teacher Express website.) Since our theme was counting this week, we also sang "Alice the Camel (has 5 humps)" and "Five Little Monkeys." To learn numbers and counting, we played "Egg Carton Shake" which I read about here but I tweaked it by simply using numbers in each egg compartment, so when we shook the button into one, we learned what number it was. In the future, I also will try to get her to put the correct amount of pony beads into the numbers that we know so far, but she was much more interested in just shaking the beads in the carton to see where they ended up! :)

We also completed "Dora's Counting Activity Book," which you can print free here from nickjr.com. I was actually surprised at how well she did with these pages, which included counting particular items in a picture and circling them. She loved it because it had Dora on it, of course! Also, for counting, and specifically this week we focused on the number three, she completed this number three worksheet. 

We did several activities for the letter C, including making a cute caterpillar using pom-poms and a popsicle stick "branch" for him to sit on and gluing pony bead circles onto the letter C. For developing motor skills, we have started "practicing cutting" with scissors, which my daughter finds both fascinating and frustrating at the same time! We used the "What's in the Grass?" worksheet and the same website also has many others for learning to cut. Our sensory activity this week (the bubble balls are still sitting in the tub) was the "C" Bag, which was simply a brown paper sack I filled with items that begin with C. I had her close her eyes and take one out at a time so we could sing each one to the tune of "Farmer in the Dell" (i.e. "Car starts with C, car starts with C, the letter C, car starts with C") She really enjoyed it, so we did it more than once and I will use it for future letters as well. 

Our Torah verse this week was from Deuteronomy 30:14:  "[G-d's] word is very close to you -- in your mouth, even in your heart; therefore, you can do it!" We talked about having the Torah in your heart and used the parashah coloring pages from Nitzavim-Vayeilech from aish.com and also one from next week's Ha'azinu, depicting a child learning Torah. We made a collage using the Torah, the child studying, and the stars, etc. and also circled his mouth and glued on his heart to illustrate the verse as we talked about it.

This week, we also began spending a little more time on our Hebrew letter, bet. We have been using the printable pages from www.akhlah.com for each letter, but this week we cut the bet out and put it on a cutout I had of a school, because the worksheets have three words that start with bet, and the words were: beit sefer (school), beit (house), and boker (morning). On the other side of the school, we glued this house worksheet and glued the Hebrew word for house over the English, and also made a sun out of scrap paper for "morning". She drowned the poor thing with glue, so it was fun for her! She also tried to say the Hebrew words, so as we go on, I will incorporate more of this for the Hebrew vocabulary.

We also began our "13 Things I Know About G-d" lesson, making our sun craft, which I mentioned here if you have not read that post yet, and talking about G-d's attribute of LOVE. I found a cute family portrait picture that I made a cardstock frame for. I asked my daughter who G-d loved in the picture, and let her put a heart stamp next to each one, and circle them, even the puppy! ;) We also wrote the verse, "G-d is Love" from 1 John 4:8. This picture will go on on "school wall" along with the "13 Things I know About G-d" sun, so that we can add our other projects as we cover His other attributes.

What should small children know about G-d?

Recently a friend (and mother of a three year old) asked me how I teach my two-year old about Yeshua. My answer was that at this point, we mostly read her Bible stories about Yeshua and tell her about Him as opportunities arise in daily life. Little ones learn (and believe) what they see, so ultimately everything that she will learn about Yeshua will be from watching us. However, this question stayed close with me and caused me to ponder the question of how to teach her about G-d in her homeschooling in a way she could understand, and that I could build upon as she grows. 
In my pondering, I thought about what is traditionally called the Shelosh Esrei Middot or the "13 Attributes of G-d's Mercy" as taken from G-d's proclamation to Moshe in Exodus 34:6-9. It proved very helpful both in reminding me who G-d is, and as a guideline to use in teaching my daughter about Him. The Biblical text states:
"And the L-RD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The L-RD, The L-RD G-d, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." (KJV)

The following was taken from the website www.hebrew4christians.com in their parashah teaching on this portion of Scripture. "According to traditional interpretations, the thirteen attributes are articulated as follows:  The L-RD - I, the L-RD, am the merciful Source of life The L-RD - The repetition of G-d's name indicates that G-d is merciful to a person after he has sinned and shown teshuvah (repentance) El - G-d the Mighty: G-d is the rightful Judge Rachum: G-d the compassionate, merciful to the poor and downtrodden Vechanun: G-d is gracious and generous even to the undeserving Erech Apayim: G-d is slow to anger and patient in waiting for our repentance; Verav Chesed: G-d is abundant in kindness to both the righteous and the wicked; Ve'emet: G-d is truthful and faithful in carrying out promises; Notzer Chesed La'alafim: G-d extends kindness for a thousand generations, taking into account the merit of our worthy ancestors Nosei Avon: G-d forgives iniquity, defined in the tradition as wrongful deeds committed with premeditation; Vafesha: G-d forgives transgression, defined as wrongful deeds committed in a rebellious spirit; Vechata'ah: G-d forgives sin, those wrongful deeds that were inadvertent; Venakeh: G-d will cancel all punishment for those who are truly repentant."  You can read their full teaching here. Based loosely on these 13 attributes, I came up with the following "13 Things I know About G-d" craft to do with my daughter as an introduction for her: I used a circle traced from a bowl on a paper plate to make the center of our Sun. (I could only come up with either using the Sun or a flower as two possibilities for this because I wanted a center and ways to display the attributes around the edge.) I printed this on yellow card stock, cut it out using the same size circle and glued it to the paper plate, and then also printed the attributes and cut them out (there is a clip-art picture next to each one to help little eyes  visualize the attribute, but they would not paste into this post. Email me at why_b_messianic@yahoo.com and I will gladly send you the original Word document!) 13 things I know about G-d! He: is Ruler of the World      gives us everything we have    doesn’t get angry easily      is good to everyone    keeps His promises    remembers the good things we do     is forgiving      is kind    is loving     is holy       is One      gives life     made everything     The 13 Attributes were then glued to large Popsicle sticks that we painted yellow and glued around the circle to make "the Sun". (I made it a point to say that the Sun is not G-d, but G-d made the Sun.) Of course, for very young children, these attributes still need further explanation, and as parents we can use illustrations from our lives to clarify them and also make use of comparisons. In addition, I will make a point to add that "Yeshua is G-d" as we talk about Him, even though that may prove difficult to explain. This week, I introduced the concept that G-d is love, and next week look forward to our theme of "mitzvot & chores," which will lend itself to the "G-d remembers the good things we do" attribute. This will also be a great opportunity to teach what mitzvot are, and that they should be seen as acts of love and obedience and never as trying to earn favor (or salvation) from G-d. We will also learn about rewards & consequences. With Rosh HaShanah approaching, these concepts will be very important for our children to know amidst the popular understanding that our good deeds need to outweigh our bad ones and that we can actually work for salvation.  I will continue to post on the individual attributes as we expound upon them in weekly parashot, as this will be an evolving (and never-ending) lesson. Children learn a lot through songs as well, so I will be gathering songs that can help teach these attributes. (Please share any that you know!) Because Psalm 145 also mentions several of these attributes, I like to sing the chorus of Shane & Shane's song "Psalm 145," which you can hear by clicking here.  A book that we have and like is "My Little Golden Book About G-d," which talks about some of G-d's attributes. It also helps little children by making comparisons, such as comparing G-d's love to the strong arms of a daddy's hug or loving kisses from a mother, which makes it much clearer to a child. I will look for other books as well, and appreciate your recommendations.  While this version of the attributes is meant for very small children, you can tweak it and include all of the 13 attributes for older children, which I plan to do in the future. I think that this is a good starting point for the little ones, though. It is my hope that you find the concept helpful in teaching your children as well.