A Few Ideas for Bat Mitzvah Projects or Activities

Making Bat Mitzvah’s (and Bar Mitzvahs) meaningful and fun is often a topic of discussion between parents and children. There are many different things that can be done (and throughout our blog we have many different ideas like this discussion regarding  what you do at a Bat Mitzvah. Here are a few ideas for Bat Mitzvah projects or activities. We would love to hear of others from you.

Hafrashat Challah

Hafrashat Challah (separating challah)  is a big one for Bat Mitzvahs. As one of the three prominent mitzvot for women as mentioned in the mishnah (of which one is sort of irrelevant for twelve year old girls in contemporary society), its an easy way to acknowledge a girls acceptance of mitzvot and you end up with something yummy.  Two of my nieces did this as part of their Bat mitzvah celebrations, one of them as part of a program with Melabev, a day care center for people with dementia. This could include decorating challah separating prayer/tefillot cards with a card shaped like a challah, a magnet and the text of the tefillot.

Family Scrapbooks

Several of the girls in my chug have also been making family scrapbooks as part of their Bat mitzvah activities. They learn more about their families as well as a new skill. In a simplified form, scrapbooking could be done as an activity at a bat mitzvah celebration by asking participants to bring family photos and coming up with an interesting question to answer as part of a scrapbook page layout. it could be holiday, story or event centered as well. This idea additionally is in Pirkei Hallel, take a look at our review here.

Cupcake Decorating

Here’s another idea which is completely different. Cake, cookie or cupcake decorating. You could do this as an opportunity to learn how to frost and decorate cupcakes (here’s an example of a party of that type here.

My niece recently did a variation on this but using edible paper toppers which could be decorated with edible ink pens. She and her sisters prepared cupcakes and cookies.

Each guest could then draw on the paper and transfer the design to cupcakes and cookies.  Drawing on paper meant that the process was not as messy as it might have been with decorating tips.

Papers and pens with kosher certification include Kopykak’s frosting sheets.

Here are some results:

Small fry could also do this:

There are also many programs today that have mother daughter learning opportunities. Check locally for what is available. Any other suggestions for Bat Mitvah projects? We would love to hear them.