Chumash

I teach Toldos in 3rd grade but I'm sure you can do some of these things in 4th grade as well.

One of the things I do, when teaching about Yaakov and Esav and their differences in the way they looked and acted, is to bring big posters of 2 boys. We fill it with words form the pessukim describing these 2 boys and then decorate them accordingly. For example, in Esav we would write Admoni, Koolo Ka'aderes Se'ar, Ish Sadeh... and then we put on red yarn, a bow and arrow, grass all around him... We keep these posters hanging in class so we can always refer back to it and add to it.

Another thing I do alot of is acting out. The girls love it and it really helps them learn the translations of the words when they are acting it out at the same time. I bring costmes and props to make it more exciting. Sometimes I have just a few volunteers act it out in front of the class. (ex: When learning about Yaakov cooking soup..., I choose 2 girls to come up 1 being Yaakov who gets a hat and jacket and the other being Esav who gets a toy bow and arrow. While the class reads and translates the pessukim, they need to act it out accordingly at the right words, so while the class says "vayazed yaakov nazid" - yaakov would stir the big pot that I bring to school, when reading "Vayavoh Esav min hasadeh" Esav would walk in from the door (looknig tired), and so on. Sometimes, i would do this a few times to give more girls a chance to act it out and the girls are really learning the translations while doing this. It is also great for those visual learners because they actually see what happened.

Sometimes we act it out all together the whole class. One example of when I did this was when learning about how Rivka gave him Esav's clothing and put fur on his hands and gave him food. I divided the whole class into partners. Each group had 1 Rivka and 1 Yaakov. They used their coats as Esav's clothing and I gave them a paper plate for the food, and some hair (like the kinds used for arts and crafts) to use as the fur. Then standing in their groups, we read the pessukim, and wile reading it, Rivka had to put on "bigdei Esav" and put the fur "al yadav ve-al chelkas tzava'rav"... Then we did it again, switching roles. This sometimes makes the lesson take a little longer but they learn it so well and have fun at the same time.

One more thing I do when there is a lot of conversation is divide the class with each group being another person who is speaking. (this can be done while still staying in their seats, just divide by rows. ex: 1st two rows are Rivka and last 2 rows are Yaakov) Then we read the pessukim with each group reading only when it is their character talking in the passuk. They enjoy seeing how well they can do this using the right tone of voice (angry, happy scared) and trying to do better than the other group.

Hope this helps!