Birkat Chaverim
I never did post these pictures but we did some salt play for Parshat Vaaera. Letter tracing in salt (in a broken lunch container). Also used to play with toy animals. Gluing salt to paper. We actually colored this with a dropper and food coloring but the child making the project was more interested in seeing what would happen if he scrunched ...
We did this in honor of Tu B'shvat. We had bought a few small cactii and also had some succulents growing here and there, as well as 30 year old pots filled with soil but no plants. Together we dug holes, transferred the plants, watered the soil and then added rocks on top for interest and to keep the water in longer. Almost three year old liked choo ...
We like to do science experiments related to holidays and such. Here's a Shabbat silver experiment using simple electroplating. This is a basic chemistry experiment we do every once and a while for Shabbat (and holiday) preparations. Usually we do it when we notice that the silver we use every week for saying Kiddush and lighting the Sabbath candles do ...
This week's parsha tie ins were a big hit with my 2.5 year old and I thought I'd share. The picture is of his favorite one, which was sorting lentils. I gave him a spice container, funnel, and three types of lentils and let him layer them however he wanted. He was super excited about it and said, "this is a pretty project, Ima!" He could have ...
In honor of Character Counts Week, here is a guest post by Laurie Rappeport about the Irena Sendler Project that both is an example of the piller of citizenship as well as an example of the type of project bnai mitzvah could do. In the Jewish World celebrating Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs often involves encouraging a young person to accept a new res ...
Character Counts Week begins October 20th. Building character is something we tend to agonize about in our family (are we modeling appropriate behaviours? do our kids understand our values and have they internalized them? are they being mentchen when we are not around? are they interacting with their friends in appropriate manners? are we putting them i ...
I have not been photographing any of the parsha related projects we are currently doing but we have a bunch of posts online that could be useful for familes looking for parsha ideas. These are mostly geared towards young children, but some are also good for older children. In addition, there are lots of interesting projects pinned to the Jewish informal ...
Do you have or are you an artistic junior or high school student who is interested in creating Judaic art? The American Guild of Judaic Artists has started an interesting new project: The Judaic Visual Arts On-Line Mentoring Program. This program is open to students all over the world in grades 7-12. Students interested in creating Judaic art will be ...
This is version one of a free template to make Kamtza and Bar Kamtza puppets. Children can color them, cut them out and attach them to popsicle sticks. There is a small script, a version of the story if you will, on the template page. You are welcome to use this with small children. However, it is in no way intended as a definitive telling of the story. ...
The idea of building the kotel or Beit Hamikdash out of Marshmallows is not the most original idea in the world. However, we did do a few additions that were fun, and you can too. Food Coloring Glorious Good Coloring First off, for our marshmallow kotel, we used food coloring to add a stone-like touch to the "bricks." We also used leaf shaped sprinkle ...