Bright Beginnings Chumash Lech Lecha Workbook Vol. II with Shoreshland Game

Chumash Parshas Lech Lecha- Part 2

The Rabbi Meyer & Leya Zanitsky Memorial Edition

Written by: Rabbi Yosef B. Rawicki    •    Published by: Bright Beginnings/Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, Director    •

Worksheets by: Mrs. Brocha Twersky

*For bulk or international orders orders: Please contact us at: publications@thebrightbeginnings.com

Are the Bright Beginnings Chumash Workbooks For You?

• Are you the parent of a preschooler who wants to give your son/daughter the priceless Hebrew language skills that are so important to success in school (Just think of how much better children from Eretz Yisroel do in Chumash and Navi, because they speak Ivrit)?
• Do you have a child who is floundering in Limudei Kodesh (Judaic Studies) because he/she just can't seem to get his/her hands around the Hebrew language?
• Are you a chozer b'teshuvah who would love to be more fluent in Lashon Kodesh/Chumash or a frum-from-birth adult who learned by rote in your formative years and are still unable to translate/understand Hebrew language text?
• Are you involved in the leadership of a cheder or day school and would love to upgrade the quality of instruction in Limudei Kodesh by introducing cutting-edge curricular materials that will attract and retain the attention of today's hyper-stimulated school kids?

Description of Bright Beginnings Chumash Workbooks:

If any of the above applies to you, we encourage you to consider our Bright Beginning Chumash Workbooks.
The Bright Beginnings Workbooks were developed over a sixteen year period in Yeshiva Darchei Noam of Monsey and are designed for classroom use at the grade level when children are first introduced to chumash. In addition to their use in a school setting, they can also be utilized at home should parents wish to enrich the Hebrew skills of their children. We have also found them to be an effective tool for adults who have a limited background in Judaic studies, and even for yeshiva graduates who were taught chumash by rote in their childhood.

The coloring and highlighting of the words on the translation sheets are designed to draw the learner’s attention to accurately match the root word (shoresh), and the prefix/suffix to its respective meaning.

Our newly published 2nd Edition of Volume I contains a significant upgrade – the addition of the entirely new Hachana L’Chumash chapter which pre-teaches the concepts of Sharashim, Milim, prefixes and suffixes, as well as introducing the 6 main prefixes. Acquiring these concepts prior to beginning Chumash study enables the children to recognize and translate a significant portion of the text immediately, which helps remove the paralyzing “fear factor” of encountering a foreign text. This will empower the teacher to focus on the comprehension of the text, as he/she will only need to review the technical language skills, rather than introduce them for the very first time.

There are a wide range of worksheets – all carefully designed to support the synchronized manner in which languages are taught. The three most common worksheets in the first volume are:

• Match the Shoresh – Helps the children learn and retain a growing list of shorashim.
• Color the Prefix/Suffix – To develop an understanding of how the “lego pieces” of the Hebrew language click together to form more complex words.
• Match the Word – Is the “ah-ha” moment when the learners apply the shoresh recognition and the language skills to recognize the actual words as they appear in the chumash. This type of worksheet also serves to provide context to the individual words – a critical component in language acquisition.

In Volume II we build on the skills already retained and craft worksheets to master new concepts

• Can You Find the Shoresh in the Word – Adds to the growing list of shorashim retained and teaches the children to actually deconstruct the words on their own
• Translation Time – Match the shoresh to the correct translation
• What Does the Prefix/Suffix Mean – The next level of working with prefixes and suffixes
• Understanding the Pasuk – Going beyond the words to greater conceptual understanding

Shoreshland Game

A governing principle of this chumash workbook series is that it be "vertically aligned" meaning that the skills acquired in previous workbooks are reviewed but not taught again so that new material can be concentrated on and mastered.

The thirty-five shorashim covered in the first Bright Beginnings Workbook will be reviewed via the fun-filled "Shoreshland" game. In it, the children test each other in the two main skills of Lashon HaKodesh – translating the words and determining the shoresh of any given word.

As they continue through Volume II, new cards are added to the game to enable them to continue to review all the words they are now familiar with since they began learning Chumash.

Skill-Based Learning

This method is based on the concept that children are served best when they are first taught the basic structure of Lashon HaKodesh (Hebrew language). This colorful workbook introduces the learner to the meaning and usage of the most common shorashim (root words) and the shimushim (prefixes and suffixes) that are used to conjugate the root words.

Thirty-two years of experience in education – as the Rebbi of the weaker track of eighth grade, and later as the dean of a growing Yeshiva and the Director of Project YES, a nationwide program designed to assist teens and their families, have led me to the inescapable conclusion that failure to attain rudimentary language skills is by far and away the greatest educational reason children don’t succeed in school. I recommend that you download the three columns below that I wrote for Mishpacha Magazine* a few years back for a more comprehensive treatment of the value of skill-based learning.

It is my hope and prayer that these workbooks and future volumes will help children acquire the language skills that will allow them to become independent learners who develop a lifelong love for learning.

*

Related Articles on the Importance of Teaching Skills to our Children:

-[It Doesn’t Start in Tenth Grade]
-[Training Wheels]
-[Exit Interviews]

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz is the founding dean of Yeshiva Darchei Noam of Monsey, and founder and Director of The Center for Jewish Family Life/ Project YES. He is recognized throughout the Jewish community as an authority on raising children in these troubled times. Rabbi Horowitz released more than a dozen parenting CD’s and authored two books, Growing with the Parsha and Living and Parenting (Artscroll).

Rabbi Horowitz has been an outspoken advocate for child safety and abuse prevention for over a decade. Under his leadership, Project YES partnered with ArtScroll to publish the acclaimed "Let’s Stay Safe!" child safety book which sold over 20,000 copies in less than 2 years. He also created a free, 3-part video series "Child Safety On-The-Fly" which helps parents have critical safety conversations with their children.

Rabbi Horowitz was awarded the 2002 Rockland Educator of the Year Award, and received national recognition as a recipient of the coveted Grinspoon-Steinhart Award for Excellence in Jewish Education. The Covenant Foundation has awarded Rabbi Horowitz with the prestigious 2008 Covenant Award, presented to outstanding Jewish educators in North America.

For more information about Rabbi Horowitz, visit his website at  https://thebrightbeginnings.com