Teach Jewish History K–5 Lesson
Teacher’s Guide

Your Name in Hebrew Letters

An alphabet lesson, right to left · Grades K–5, in two tracks
Two Yemenite Jewish scribes, a father and his son, writing a Torah scroll by hand
Yemenite Torah scribes, father and son, c. 1934–1939, writing with the same twenty-two letters the children will write today. G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress.
Grade band
Grades K–5 (a K–2 track and a 3–5 track)
Lesson length
Around 35 minutes (K–2) · 40 minutes (3–5)
Format
Picture study · letter tracing · write your name · a class scroll
Materials
Both printables (one each per child) · pencils · crayons · a long strip of paper for the class scroll · tape · scissors (grades 1–5, pre-cut for K)
Printables
Tracing sheet · Name chart and card · Words to Know card
Prerequisites
None. Pairs naturally with Stories, Foods, and Words and One People, Many Faces.
Standards
World cultures · Language & literacy · NY K.2, 1.1, 2.2 (K–2) · 3.4 (3–5) · NCSS Theme 1 (Culture) · C3 D2.Geo.2.K-2, D2.His.2.3-5 · Common Core RF.K–1.1 (print concepts, by contrast), L.K–5.4, SL.K–5.1
Public school
Taught as culture and history, the way a class studies any people’s writing. Children learn an alphabet and write their own names in it. Nobody writes, reads, or says any prayer, blessing, or sacred name. The lesson uses no Hebrew text, only the letters and the children’s names. The words-to-know card names the objects in the lesson.

Why this lesson, for the teacher

An alphabet is one of the most concrete ways into a culture. A class that has traced a few Chinese characters, or written its names in Arabic script, remembers it. Hebrew has twenty-two letters, runs from right to left, and has been written with the same alphabet for about three thousand years. The scribe in the photograph is writing a scroll by hand with them, the way scribes still do. The same letters are on a street sign in Tel Aviv and on the cover of a picture book. A child who can write her own name in those letters has touched all of that at once. For the students, the lesson is simply: here is an alphabet that goes the other way, and here is your name in it.

The idea a child should leave with: a language a whole people kept for thousands of years, and I can write my name in it.

What this lesson teaches

Students learn that Hebrew is written with twenty-two letters from right to left, that its letters are very old and still in daily use, and that they can write their own name in it. By the end, a K–2 student can trace five letters and find the letters of their name. A 3–5 student can write their full first name, sound out a partner’s, and explain why the vowels are mostly missing.

Core understandings

  1. Hebrew has twenty-two letters, and there are no capital letters.
  2. It is written and read from right to left. A Hebrew book opens from what an English reader would call the back.
  3. The letters are mostly consonants. Vowels are small dots and dashes placed under or beside a letter. Children’s books and printed Bibles use them, but a Torah scroll and a street sign do not. A Hebrew reader fills the vowels in.
  4. Five letters change shape at the end of a word (kaf, mem, nun, pey, and tsadi).
  5. The letters are very old: Hebrew was first written about three thousand years ago, and scribes still copy the Torah scroll by hand in the same alphabet.
  6. A surprise for the older band: the letters also stand for numbers (alef is 1, bet is 2, and so on), which is how dates are often written on a Jewish calendar.

The two printables

Notes on teaching this well

Suggested lesson flow

K–2 track about 35 minutes

Which way is he writing? (5 min)

Project the photograph at the top of this guide, or hold it up.

“These two are writing a very long scroll by hand, one letter at a time. Look at the father’s hand. Which way do you think the writing goes across the page?”

Take guesses, then the reveal: “Hebrew goes from right to left. Each line starts on the side where our lines end.” Hold up any picture book and open it from the back: “A Hebrew book opens this way too.” Then: “This alphabet is about three thousand years old, and these letter shapes have been used for more than two thousand. Today you are going to write your name with them.”

Meet five letters (7 min)

Hand out The Alef-Bet. Say the first five names together, pointing from the right: alef, bet, gimel, dalet, hey. Children trace each one with a finger first, then with a pencil, starting at the right edge of the row. Kindergarten traces the five. Grades 1 and 2 keep going down the sheet as time allows.

Your name (15 min)

Hand out Your Name in Hebrew Letters. K: before class, or at the table, an adult writes each child’s name in Hebrew letters lightly in pencil in the big box, using the chart, and the child traces it and colors the card. Grades 1–2: children say their name slowly, count the sounds, find each sound in the chart, and write the letters themselves, starting at the arrow on the right. A helper checks the final-form letters. The vowels mostly stay out, “the way a scroll leaves them out.”

The class scroll (5 min)

Each child cuts or tears off the name card at the bottom of the sheet (K: pre-cut). Tape the cards onto the long strip of paper in a line, the first card at the right end. Then the class reads its own scroll the Hebrew way, right to left, each child saying their name as the teacher’s finger reaches it.

Close (3 min)
“Look at the scroll we made. Now look at the scroll in the picture. Same letters. Those two scribes were using them ninety years ago. People have been writing this alphabet for three thousand years. Now you can write your name in it.”

On the board: A language a whole people kept for thousands of years, and I can write my name in it.

3–5 track about 40 minutes

Which way, and the number surprise (6 min)

The photograph and the right-to-left reveal, as above, then the surprise: “Hebrew letters are also numbers. Alef is 1, bet is 2, gimel is 3, all the way up. Your sheet shows the number under each letter. Find the letter for your age.” (Ten is yud. Eleven is yud followed by alef, written right to left.) Thirty seconds, then hands up.

Meet the letters (7 min)

Hand out The Alef-Bet. Read the twenty-two names across the rows, right to left, the class repeating each. Point out the five letters with a second shape for the end of a word, and the fact that there are no capitals. Children trace the full sheet.

Your name (15 min)

Hand out Your Name in Hebrew Letters. Children say their name slowly, count the sounds, find each sound in the chart, and write the letters in the box starting at the arrow on the right. They use the end form for a final M, N, F, K, or TS sound. Read the honesty line on the sheet aloud: some English sounds have no Hebrew letter, so the chart gives the closest one, and a Hebrew reader could still sound the name out. Then swap papers: each child reads a partner’s name from the Hebrew letters alone, right to left, and the partner says whether it was close.

The class scroll (7 min)

Children cut off their name cards. Build the scroll on the long strip, first card at the right end, and read it together right to left. Grades 4 and 5: one child reads the whole scroll aloud from the Hebrew letters, then a second child checks.

Close (5 min)
“Same letters as the scroll in the picture. Same letters as scrolls two thousand years old in museums. Same letters on a street sign in Tel Aviv this morning. A whole people kept this alphabet for three thousand years, in every country they lived in, and you just wrote your name in it.”

On the board: A language a whole people kept for thousands of years, and I can write my name in it. If there is a minute left: “What other alphabets do you know that go a different way, or look different from ours?” (Arabic, Chinese characters, Korean, Greek, Cyrillic: any answer is a good one.)

Follow-up & pairing

Sources & further reading (for the teacher)