Birkat Chaverim Blog

As school is approaching here are some related projects. Above is a desk organizer made out of plastic bags and clear tape. It was made by a student in my chug/class. Also useful for school are notebooks. Another participant made this notebook cover: Continue reading »

I made this one with my daughter (she chose to do a cat) but prior to that we made some of these in my chug/class (I havent found the pictures yet! When I do Ill post them.) Continue reading »

Summer is a good time to post these two projects made by two girls in my class. First is a water scene made out of plastic bags and fimo. I thought it was really neat. She tested what happens when you iron plastic bags a little too long and then made use of the piece as the ocean. She didn’t have to. You can actually iron other pieces together but she liked the effect. The fimo was shaped using a mold I bought that made sea animal shapes. Continue reading »

Here’s a project made by one of the girls (age 12) in my chug. It was made several months ago out of recycled fabric. I have no idea where the beige came from but the lining is a tshirt. She cut the zipper down to size and thought out how she wanted to sew it since she wanted a lining. It came out rather nicely. Useful for storing tissues and money and such. She wanted to make something like this and we looked at a few possible ideas before she chose to do it this way. There was no pattern involved.

I haven’t made these but they seem fun for traveling. The first two I stumbled across via The Crafty Crow, who did a fun set of posts about games from around the world.

Korean Board game The post on crafty crow uses craft sticks, rocks and a drawn board game to make this, but I imagine that in a pinch one could find things to make this even while traveling. Its a bit like Sorry.

Picaria A strategy game sort of like Tic Tac Toe but more complicated. Its a Native American game

Last year I hunted down lots of bingo, scavenger hunts, coloring sheets and mazes for a family trip with multi aged children. One thing we didn’t end up including in all those games were dot to dots. As a kid, I really liked doing and designing dot to dots- I used to like making them for my friends. I found a source for complicated ones and simple ones. The first site has dot to dots that change weekly based on ones syndicated in newspapers.

I’ve been working on this for the past few days and some of you Toronto readers may be interested in attending- Simi Peters will be giving a lecture on “Abraham Breaks the Idols Not for Children Only” July 14th and July 13-15th there will be Beit Midrash style learning focusing on Bilam and Bnei HaElohim. For more information email cfnishmat at gmail.

Tomorrow is my daughter’s last day in gan for the year and today is her end of the year party. We decided to give the four teachers gifts each one gift from the whole gan. Part of the gift is something returnable and part of it is something from the children.

I asked all the parents to send a photo of their child and a quote “What is your favorite thing about gan?” Its a good thing I asked for this a few weeks in advanced, because the main gannenet (pre-school teacher) asked for quotes for the other gannenot and it might have been difficult to get the materials we needed given the additional requests. Continue reading »

One of the girls in the chug (class) brought in slices of a cereal box to use as game pieces for her game. I liked that idea and used it with my daughter to make a travel game for my older niece who is a camp counsellor this summer. It had to be something that would a.fit in a matchbox and b.easy enough for a three year old to contribute. I remembered the beautiful slotted building discs by Joel Henririques and thought that would be perfect for what we wanted to do, although in a modified simple fashion. Continue reading »

We have been making travel games over the last few weeks in our chug/classes. The idea was that almost all the girls are going away somewhere once school is out and all of the “somewhere” require traveling. Having some travel games would make the traveling part of the trip more fun. For inspiration I pulled out a HABA game I bought my daughter a while back (see image.) I also pulled out three books that I thought might be useful for ideas: Continue reading »

The title probably should be something like “Taking advantage of Melabev’s book launch to talk about Bar and Bat Mitzvah activities.”

To give a brief overview- Melabev is a community center(s) for people with dementia. They have programs for early stage  dementia patients to both have ongoing mental stimulation and provide respite for their families. They have many different programs, including memory clubs and have programs in several languages.

On June 30th, those of you who live in the central area of Israel might be interested in coming to the book launch for “Alzheimer and other Dementias. Treating and Coping with Mentally Frail in the Community” (Hebrew.) There are all types of articles related to the care of people with early and late stages of dementia as well as articles on supporting families and even spiritual care of dementia patients.  The book launch with be at Melabev June 30 7:30, Derech Beit Lechem 152. For details contact 052 7203025.

Disclosure- my sister edited the book and contributed several articles, including “Intergenerational activities-young people and dementia patients.” Which relates to an activity that could be done for Bar and Bat Mitzvot. Melabev welcomes young celebrants who wish to celebrate their Bar/Bat Mitzvah with center participants. Its fun for people who attend the centers and a good learning experience and chesed opportunity for children and their families.

For more information you can be in touch with Melabev via their website or contact me and I’ll make sure they get your questions.