Hebrew Letter Playdough

Some  of my kids are naturally drawn towards building structures. When giving a choice between doing an art/craft project, reading, writing, or building something---these kids will choose building every time.

It doesn't matter if it's Legos, lincoln logs, magnetic connectors or pipe cleaners-- the "builders" of your class will LOVE a structural challenge.

One of the main objectives we have for our Kindergarten class is learning each Hebrew letter and its corresponding sound.

How can my builders work on this objective?

Playdough. 

It's a pretty obvious solution. Playdough is malleable, and therefore lends itself well towards creating both rounded and angular letters. Obviously working with playdough helps students recognize/identify Hebrew letters.

But how can teachers use playdough to encourage students to recognize a letter's SOUND?

After thinking this problem through-- I finally came up an idea. I decided to create a year-long playdough binder that students can use week to week. On each page of the binder is both the Hebrew letter and a corresponding picture (beginning with the same sound as that letter).

For example, the letter bet is paired with a basketball, reinforcing that bet makes the sound /b/.
And so on....

It actually was a pretty easy fix.

While the students are making their play dough creations, prompt them to think of more words that begin with the designated letter.

Here is the resource I created: Hebrew Letter Playdough 

Basically, I put the packet in a binder and prop it up like so:

In terms of the actual center itself, I found a super cool playdough workshop at our local Goodwill.

 The inside of the workshop has these tools the kids can experiment around with!

Every week, I flip the page of the binder--so that the picture corresponds with the letter we are learning.

My builders love it :)

Side note: Varying materials is always a good thing.  Instead of only using playdough, I also use this resource when the students build with magnetic connectors and pipe-cleaners. Basically, this binder is useful for any manipulative material you want to use!

B'shalom, 
Elana