The Shabbat Princess, written by Amy Meltzer, illustrated by Martha Avilés (Kar-Ben, $7.95, 32 pages, ages 4-8, ISBN 9780761351061). See links below.
I got a copy of The Shabbat Princess a few weeks ago and put it on my desk to review, but my 4 year-old son saw it, took it, and still keeps it in the “good” book pile by his bed. This arrangement constitutes his version of a book review. Continue reading
Edible Mishkan - Tabernacle
Last week’s Parsha was Vayakel, the one where the Israelites build the Mishkan, the Tabernacle in the wilderness. So, for a Shabbat activity at synagogue, I created an Edible Mishkan. Each kid 2nd grade and up made a personal, edible Mishkan.
Many liberties have been taken with materials, but it was a sweet little project.
Everything is kosher. My store was out of Jelly Belly gummy bears, or they would be sitting on the ark as chubby cherubim.
The cute labels are from a lesson plan called “Cut and Paste Mishkan,” submitted by J. MacLeod at the Hebrew day school education site Chinuch.org. I used the labels only. The edible idea is mine.
The footprint of the Mishkan was a big piece of red construction paper with smaller blue origami box as the Holy of Holies. Kids were given labels and supplies and had to create the ark, the golden basin, the copper altar, the golden altar and the shulcan (the table for the 12 loaves of show bread)
My favorite part was handing them the tube of red food gel after they assembled their copper altar with the unfortunate cow (animal cracker) poised at the top for sacrifice.
A mini Reese cup in golden foil would have been a perfect basin, but to avoid nut products I used a Rolo.
The menorah was just a double-sided cardstock picture, because making one out of candy or snacks to this scale proved to be beyond me. I’ve used shoelace licorice and pretzel sticks to make menorahs plenty of times, but not this small. If anyone can think of a way to make an edible menorah about an inch or two tall, holler.
Oh, and the incense atop the golden altar (two caramel cubes, stacked) was a chocolate chip, chocolate being one of the best smells in the world.
Making edible Jewish crafts is a fun and tasty way to enrich a lesson.
More to come, including a forthcoming book.
The Ark, with jellybean cherubim
Shulchan with Show Bread (puffed rice)
Edible Mishkan: one version
Posted in Edible Craft, Jewish parenting, Shabbat
Tagged Edible Jewish Craft, Mishkan, Tabernacle, Teruma, Vayakel
On May 23rd, blogger HomeShuling tagged me for her meme: a word I had to look up and still don’t know what it means. Basically, HomeShuling sent six Shabbat-related questions out to several Jewish Mom Bloggers and the world at large, with a view to the construction of a virtual Shabbat. To me, the method constitutes an online chain letter, which I normally shun (having been raised to think they are always suspect in some insidious way) but this time happily answered. No secret agenda here, just community.
My answers are below. Feel free to add your own in a comment. They really are good questions, and I’d love to know the answers from many a mom.
1. Challah – home baked or bought?
“Challah is taken” here in Nashville, but the bakeries churn out loaves lacking that certain Jewish something. We actually have one certified kosher challah source, but I never remember to get over to the Ortho shul in time to nab one. So we bake. If I run out of frozen extras, I bake cornbread in an iron skillet (and pretend it qualifies for a motzi).….
2. Favorite shabbat meal:
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes (not whipped), overcooked spinach, fresh Bradley tomato slices, iced tea.
3. Any creative shabbat rituals?
We sing the kiddush super loud and bang on the table during the latter part. Having dinner together is the real ritual, as it doesn’t happen every day. We wear our special kippot and use the kid-generated challah covers (on a rotating schedule).
4. Shul? With or without the kids? (yes, I know some of you are rabbis)
Never on Fridays unless there is a special kid service. On Saturdays we go if one of us is reading Torah or if we are feeling particularly guilty about the Toddler missing shul. He loves synagogue and would go all day every day. I am allergic to sermons.
5. Traditionally shomer shabbat? If not, what’s your definition/style?
Our style is always changing, but our ideal is a proper Shabbes dinner, sticking with the family and keeping the computer OFF for 24 hrs.
6. Favorite shabbat story/book
Friday nights get Shalom Aleichem (the song, not the pseudonym) and Jewish books….even holiday books half a year off schedule. I would LOVE to have a toddler-friendly Shabbat book. A real story. Like Mrs. Moskowitz (by Amy Schwartz), but for shorter attention spans. As it is, we make do with things like DK’s My First Shabbat Book, the old See Smell and Touch Shabbat (so old it no longer smells), and the aforementioned holiday books.
This entry is simply a question for YOU.
If you go to a synagogue with your kids, what programming do they offer on Shabbat morning? Please leave a comment here about the structure of the kid’s service, what you like about it, and what you don’t like about it, and any other info or advice.
Our synagogue is revamping its Saturday morning programming for little kids. We’re offering a Kot Shabbat every single Shabbat morning at 10:30. Right now, different leaders do totally different things each time.
I want a unified, structured program about 30 minutes long, and it has to contain these things: a format that loosely mimics the Shabbat liturgy in the main sanctuary (we’ll say the Shema, do the Torah procession, etc.); some songs, dancing, movement, play; and some kind of hands-on exploration of the week’s Torah portion, or Parsha. We are a Conservative shul, so we cannot use art materials or musical instruments, but we can do puppets, dress-up, stickers, and role-play.
I would love to hear about any service that WORKS: anything that keeps kids engaged.
Thanks very much!
BBB
I’ve got it down. I know precisely when to start mixing the challah dough so that the moment the kids get home from school they can “punch.” If you’ve never made bread by hand, and have thus been denied the unaccountable pleasure of punching down dough, I urge you to unplug the bread machine and give it a go. Punching down dough is, alas, a fleeting pleasure: it takes about a second and you only get to punch once. But feeling—and hearing—the whole mass deflate is quite satisfying. And when else do we get to punch anything?
As I mentioned in the last entry, making the challah will help to assuage the Hallowe’en/Shabbat guilt ever so slightly.
Multiple fun-size Snickers bars will help even more.
I’ll let you know.
p.s. I use the hallah-with-kids recipe in Joan Nathan’s “The Children’s Jewish Holiday Kitchen.”
As soon as the single Simchat Torah flag and all the Sukkot decorations were put away, out came the Hallowe’en crap. I have three ginormous plastic bins in the attic full of witch hats, pumpkin lights, teeny mummies on strings, table runners, spooky candles, and wee skull candy-holders. For starters. The black plastic cauldrons and home-made bouncey bats (toilet paper rolls, cereal box cardboard, and google eyes: classic) couldn’t fit, so they spilled over into the shed. We looove Hallowe’en at my house. This year, though, there is a bit of a snag. It’s on Shabbat. Shabbos. The Sabbath.
Usually, the big Jewish-American calendrical conflict concerns the December Dilemma: Hanukkah vs. Christmas. Or, perhaps Continue reading
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