Nissan colours

Some colours of Nissan chosen by my daughters...hope you like them!

We are planning to do some nice  homemade Nissan borders for them...

Pesach pillows

Our Pesach pillows for a very confortable Seder night.

I made them  for my family. Specially cross stich decorated for my daughters.

If interested in measures and cross stich samples contact me by mail.

CHAG SAMEACH!!

I wish you all a joyfull Seder and Chag Sameach Pesach 

with your families and your children.

SHABBATH SHALOM

Seder plamate

Four cups Ma Nishtana reminder

 

Fun to make Ma Nishtana cards in the shape of Arba Kosos with Ma Nishtana text .
Help the kids to remember the Ma Nishtana when reciting it at their own sedarim. 
In few steps print, color, cut , glue the questions and laminate
Available with a concise lesson plan in its entirety as a non-editable PDF at Chinuch.org. 
 

The ten plagues memory game

From an idea seen at Felt so Cute we made a Ten Plagues memory game appropriate for young children to use as we called out each plague’s name in the service than drops of wine; and they were toys they could entertain themselves with as the service carried on. 
You need:
A piece of black felk to represent Darkness
Cow and ass figurines to represent Cattle DiseaseS
Styrofoam balls a little painted orange/red to represent Hail
Crawly bugs or flies to represent Lice
Laminated image to represent a body with Boils
Plastic babies to represent The Slaying of the Firstborn
Plastic figurine locust  to represent Locusts
Flat, red plastic marbles to represent Blood
Plastic figurine frogs to represent Frogs
A toy lion to represent Wild Beasts.
A green paper with the numbers of the ten plagues and...have fun!

Eliyahu cup from a common glass

You can use a cheap wine glasse,  some imitation of crystal cup for example, then you add glass mosaic beads and small crystal looking beads with using epoxy or any heavy duty, high tack glue. (if you're not going to make the craft directly with the kids)

You can make very beautiful jeweled cos shel eliyahu. 

And if you're going to do it with a kid, you can possibly use clear silicone/caulk

A felt afikomen bag

Our Afikomen bag ready for the Seder night.

We took the whole inspiration from Creative jewish mom for this no-sew felt afikomen bag and we made our own version.

For a complete tutorial, check out the Creative jewish mom afikomen bag post over at kveller.com.

Shabbath Shalom

SHABBATH HAGADOL SHALOM!!!!

A Seder plate and kiddush cup for Passover

Inspired by the paper Seder plate saw at Joyful Jewish  we made our Seder plate craft this year starting from the original craft idea to create one of our own favourite Pesach craft.

Material needed:

round golden cardboard (as the ones used under cakes)

light brown felt to cut and paste under the cardboard.

blue glitter pen to make some board decoration of the Seder plate

a transparent plastic glass

markers for decorations of the glass

coloured beads to decorate the glass

glue

velcro if you want to attach and remove food from the plate making it more interactive, as we did.

pictures of seder plate and matza that you find from Joyful Jewish here Seder plate foods and matzah

Makkot cards memoty game in plastic envelopes

I took two small plastic envelopes to do our Eser Hamakkot cards game ready for my daughters. Usefull to look at even during the Seder.

Children will match the correct pictures and names to the words to gain an understanding of how the Makkos affected the Mitzrim in contrast to the Jews. 

Very simple Memory game in which children match the Hebrew word for each Makka with its illustration. This game is an excellent way to review the ten plagues and practice Hebrew Kriya at the same time. 

Click here for  cards PDF

You can add to the cards a cartoon makkot wheel.

Spin the makkos wheel and point to each makkah in turn. Each makkah is drawn in a pie-shaped slice of the wheel. This is a good visual aid for the children to understand the entirety of the ten plagues in one glance and to help them in seeing the sequencing of the makkos.

Click here for the wheel PDF

Nissan impressions...

My little daughter when we were walking back home in the afternoon had her first "Nissan impression" and asked to take a pic...here's the result.

Shabbath Hagadol playing project.

Shabbat HaGadol ( שבת הגדול) is the Shabbat immediately before Passover.  
According to tradition, the 10th of Nisan in the year of the exodus was a Shabbath. 
It was considered a great event, in fact a miracle, that the Israelites could on that day select a lamb for sacrifice without being molested by their Egyptian masters, who, at other times, would have stoned them for such daring (Code of Jewish Law, Orach Chayyim 430: 1).

Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, "In the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house." (Shemot12:3) 

So we made a little bedroom with the korban ready for Pesach.
You just need a medium cartoon box, polystyrene, collage paper, magazines, fluorescent stars, lamb and doll.
Then you place inside it some decorations made out of  collage paper
some paper objects the childre will cut from magazines
a pillow, covers and carpets made of felt
a polystyrene bed
sticking fluorescent room stars 
a little lamb and a doll.

I have two daughters so there are two girl dolls inside the room...

getting ready for Birkat Ha-ilanot with children

The month of Nissan is filled with remarkable moments , but one of the moments that my children wait with pleasure is the blessing of the fruit trees. 
This blessing is traditionally said when one is in view of at least two flowering fruit trees, anytime through the end of the month of Iyyar (in a climate where you can say it in Nissan it's considered best to do so). 
So we made a personal braka booklet for my daughters to use to say the braka under the trees and to take a picture of the moment to add inside the booklet.

 outside cover

inside braka and a place for the picture of the moment

The braka goes like this:
"Blessed be You, Yah our God ruler of space and time, for God left nothing lacking in God's world, and created in it good creatures and good trees, giving pleasure through them to the children of Adam."

ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם שלא חסר בעולמו כלום וברא בו בריות טובות ואילנות טובים להנות בהם בני אדם

Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha-olam shelo chiseir ba-olamo k'lum uvara vo briyot tovot v'ilanot tovim l'hanot bahem b'nei Adam

 

Shabbath Para with children

My daughters painted red two toy cows so for Shabbath Para we had our Para Aduma

This Shabbath is Shabbat Para, the 2^nd of 4 special Shabbatot before Passover. 

We read about the Para Aduma, the rare red heifer, whose ashes were used in the bizarre and mysterious purification rite of the ancient Temple. 

The message for us is that it’s time to begin planning to purify our homes and ourselves for Passover. 

But when we take a close look at the text of that purification rite of the ancient Temple, we immediately ask, “It makes no sense; how could this be?”

For this rite, the ashes of the Red Heifer were sprinkled on those that had become impure, usually because of contact with the dead, and they became pure, while those who prepared the ashes became impure. 

Even King Solomon questioned the understanding of this rite when he said (Mishley 7:23): “I said I would be wise, but it is far from me.” 

Perhaps it is because, in the presence of death, there are no answers, only questions.

Shabbath Shalom!