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TETZAVEH

February 25, 2010, 11:29 am
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KOHEN GADOL APRON

It is great to have Parshat Tetzaveh the same week as Purim since much of the Parsha is dedicated to the "costume" of the Kohen. I knew right away that I wanted to make some kind of Kohen Gadol costume with the girls this week. I didn't want it to be a full-blown costume since we already have their Purim costume to worry about! Of course, a Kohen Gadol would have made a great Purim costume but there were other plans already in place...

I decided that we would focus on the Choshen Mishpat which is the most colorful part of the Kohen's uniform since it was made up of twelve different jewels to represent the twelve tribes of Israel.



This project could have been made very simply using different color paper and it would have looked great. But, I knew that if we made it out of paper, it would end up in the trash at some point. I was inclined to make something that we could keep and actually use, like the welcome mat. So, instead we made aprons. This was actually an old idea of mine. Years ago, before we were married, I made Andy a Kohen Gadol apron. Andy happens to be a Kohen and a serious cook. So, back then (when I was still making him cute gifts), I decided to buy him a white apron and chef's hat. The two items reminded me of the hat and garb of the Kohen Gadol so I bought some puffy paints and painted a design of the choshen onto the apron. I added the words "BIG KAHUNA" since we have always wondered if this expression relates to the Kohen Gadol. Anyway, I decided that the girls could do basically the same thing for themselves. First, we looked at different illustrations of the Kohen's clothes.







I bought plain child-sized aprons and puffy paints. I drew the outline of the Choshen for them in gold (as you can see from the photo, I accidentally made 9 squares instead of 12 at first which required some fixing later...)



Then, I let the girls start painting. I let them choose whatever colors they wanted for the different squares.







The results were super cute:



We even added jingle bells on to the bottom of the aprons. My hope is that these little aprons will actually get used in dress-up and play.

We had time to do a very fun and easy Parsha snack. Graham crackers, peanut butter, and jelly bellies make a great Choshen...

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VAYAKHEL PEKUDEI

March 24, 2010, 10:19 am
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MISHKAN CAKE

It has been a few weeks since I posted because Andy and I were in Israel working on our plans for aliyah to Beer Sheva this summer. I did not intentionally plan the trip in order to miss more Mishkan-related parshiot, but that was certainly a plus :). When I got back, I was determined to finally attempt a Mishkan cake with the girls, especially since I had already bought all of the very "chametzdic" ingredients weeks ago and had to get rid of them!

First, we made two brownie mixes (in retrospect, cake mixes would have worked better). Having two of everything does wonders for sibling rivalry.





After they baked, we frosted one of them and sprinkled it with graham cracker crumbs to resemble the sand of the desert:



Now we had to try to make it look something like this:



I had a few ideas for how to make the planks surrounding the mishkan. I wanted to use rolled wafers like these but I couldn't find any with a hecsher except for these which were so tempting but would have been a FORTUNE to buy 60 I would need for an accurate replica of the mishkan. So, instead we settled on good old cheap pretzel sticks.



For the ohel, we just used a piece from the second cake and covered it with a red fruit roll up. This is when I got kind of lazy and uncreative (or maybe just tired and jet-lagged). For the entrance to the mishkan and the mizbeach/altar, we just used some graham crackers. If anyone has any brilliant ideas for other ways to represent these parts of the mishkan or for the curtains, please let me know and I will try it next year!



As usual, I was the only one who was a bit disappointed with the final outcome. The girls thought it was amazing and more importantly...delicious...



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TZAV

April 8, 2010, 2:16 pm
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KETORET SPICE BAGS

Ok, so I have to admit that the combination of Passover chaos and Leviticus gore has not been very conducive to consistent Parsha Projects. But, the girls were home from school the Friday before Pesach so I was determined to get back on track (despite the fact that we had plenty of Pesach-related projects to keep us busy!)

On Thursday night, I opened up to read Parshat Tzav. In short, it is about korbanot, ritual sacrifices - the burnt offering, the meal offering, the guilt offering, the thanksgiving offering...It is not that I don't appreciate that there may be deep significance in this ancient form of worship, it is just that I am not equipped to even begin to convey what that might be to two preschoolers!

So, I zoomed in on one of the early verses that describes the "ketoret" or the incense that was burned on the altar as a "pleasing odor to the Lord." I have always liked the idea of sending sweet smells in God's direction (even if practically it might have been necessary to cover up the smells of burning animal flesh and skin). I was able to explain to the girls that the Israelites wanted the Mishkan to always smell special and beautiful - they got that.

For the project, I originally thought that we would recreate the Ketoret. Nothing like a multi-sensory craft. First, I looked into the ingredients. It says in Exodus 30 (this would probably be a better project for that parsha - Ki Tissa): "God said to Moses: Take fragrances such as balsam, onycha, galbanum, and pure frankincense, all of the same weight, as well as other fragrances. Make the mixture into incense, as compounded by a master perfumer, well-blended, pure and holy..." According to the Rabbis, the ketoret was comprised of 11 spices:

Clove
Galbanum
Frankincense
Myrrh
Cassia
Spikenard
Saffron
Costus
Aromatic Bark
Cinnamon

My first idea was to run to Rainbow Grocery and try to find as many of these whole spices as possible (not even knowing what half of them were!). Then I thought, "Emily, it is four days before Pesach, just use what you already have at home. They won't know the difference!" So, on Friday morning, we gathered together what we already had in the house - cardamon, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves and rosemary.



We had fun smelling each of them individually and then combining them into organza drawstring sachet bags (10 for $1 - best purchase ever!)






I decided that I wanted this project (like the welcome mat and kohen aprons) to be something that we could actually use regularly and not just throw out. So, we turned our ketoret into besamim or spice bags for havdalah. I still have the puffy fabric paints from the Kohen aprons so they used them to decorate their bags.



The whole project didn't take very long and there were plenty of bags and spices so I let them make as many as they wanted. In the end, we probably made about 10 bags. Maya was SO excited to give the extra bags out as gifts.



It is a regular tradition that friends gather at our home in the late afternoon on Shabbat and stay with us for Havdalah. On the rare week that nobody is around, both Maya and Avital moan "when are our friends going to come???" Thankfully, this week, our home was filled with guests and Maya was able to distribute spice bags to everyone for Havdalah and to send each of them home with this sweet gift.
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TAZRIA-METZORA

April 25, 2010, 8:32 am
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NOTHING.

Yup. We skipped Tazria-Metzora. My bat mitzvah parsha. As I read through these parshiot, I recalled the torture of coming up with a relevant dvar torah about leprosy and menstruation over twenty years ago. Of course, I am aware of the rabbinic connection between tzaraat and lashon hara and that that is the most common, relevant, and inspiring way to go. But, I just couldn't do it. First of all, it is nowhere in the text. The parsha simply has nothing to do with lashon hara, so I cannot justify dedicating a "parsha lesson" to something that is completely midrashic. And, more importantly, I am concerned about transmitting the message that we assume people with physical external ailments (such as swellings, rashes, and discoloration) have committed some morally offensive act(like lashon hara) and therefore must be banished (albeit temporarily) from the community (outside of the camp). This seemed like dangerous, uncomfortable, morally problematic territory to me. Not to mention, it makes for a weird craft. Of course, I did find the following "leper puppets" online as a way to teach the Christian Bible story of Jesus healing the ten lepers:





But, that was just not my thing. It doesn't seem to appeal to other Jewish educators either. The parsha sites that I visited generally used this week to teach Sefirat HaOmer or Yom Haatzmaut (both timely cop-outs) instead of touching this Parsha's unseemly topics. I however, in my unwavering commitment to the parsha, would rather skip it altogether than pretend it is about lashon hara, the omer, or Israel. Ok, fine, it was also Maya's 5th birthday and I had tea parties to plan and pinatas to stuff.



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ACHREI MOT-KEDOSHIM

April 25, 2010, 8:33 am
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MITZVAH JAR



I knew that we would focus this week on Parshat Kedoshim (lots of nice sweet mitzvot) and not Achrei Mot (the Azazel-goat). First I selected a handful of the most accessible mitzvot in the parsha - respecting elders, respecting parents, not speaking lashon hara, loving your neighbor, etc. (cleverly omitting the prohibitions again incest and child slaughter) - to review and discuss. Originally, I thought that we would make a "mitzvah tree" so that we could keep track of when we fulfilled any one of these. I nixed that because they (and every other Jewish preschool) have a mitzvah tree at school and I generally try to avoid having the walls of my home look too much like a preschool bulletin board. So, my revised idea was to create a "mitzvah jar." If you google "mitzvah jar" (which I did), you will find many ideas for Bar Mitzvah favors - jars filled with jelly beans customized with slogans like "I partied at Justin's bar mitzvah" - this is not what I was looking for.

There was only one that was relevant to my project - a facebook group - this is the description of the group:
“Mitzvah” means good deed, in Hebrew. When my children were very young, one and three years old, we began using what we called a “Mitzvah Jar” to encourage good behavior. When a good deed was done, we’d write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up, and put it in the Mitzvah Jar. Every so often, we’d take all the pieces of paper out and read them, to remind us of all the good they’d done. Reading all the good deeds was inspirational, no matter how simple the nice gesture was (one of my favorites…“Zachary helped Joshua open the refrigerator”), and motivated the whole family to be kind and helpful to others.Let’s take helping others to a new level! Share your acts of kindness and let’s inspire each other to make a difference! Do it in groups, do it alone, something big, something small. If you have an idea but need more manpower, post it! Who knows? Maybe through this group you'll connect with people in your area that would like to be a part of your project! Let's inspire and be inspired!

I don't know who Sue Naiditch Mirman is but this is just what I had in mind so a "mitzvah jar" it was. No shopping required. In my endless and futile attempts to have my home look like the Container Store, I have plenty of extra storage jars for dried goods.

First, I found lots of fun "google images" to represent the mitzvot we were discussing like:







Then, we got to work coloring, cutting, and pasting.



Avital decided to cut something other than paper - her hair!!!! - when I wasn't looking... but that is for another blog...



Our finished project is not gorgeous but it sits next to our shabbat candles and will hopefully gradually fill up with "mitzvah notes." On Friday, we put in the following notes:

"Maya helped her teacher do the dishes"
"Avital listened to her imma and left her bag in the car"
"Imma helped a friend cook Shabbat dinner"



While I like this project, I am somewhat wary of becoming the overly enthusiastic mother who is constantly saying in a sing-song voice things like "Who wants to be a mitzvah girl?" and "Someone did a mitzvah!". You can take the girl out of yeshiva, but...
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EMOR

May 12, 2010, 5:08 pm
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OMER CALENDAR

Sometimes I think that I am learning more about Christianity working on these projects than Judaism. Let me explain.

In contrast to Parshat Tazria, when doing an Omer project would have been a cop-out, this week's parsha actually includes the mitzvah of counting the days between Pesach and Shavuot:

"And you shall count from the next day after the sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete; To the next day after the seventh sabbath shall you count fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal offering to the Lord."

So I decided that - although we were already more than half way through the Omer - better late than never to do an Omer project. The inspiration for this project came straight from the blog Homeshuling. After googling "chocolate omer advent calendar," Amy Meltzer found this Omer Counter on Jewschool.

I loved the Omer charts on Homeshuling and Jewschool but I didn't actually know what "advent" was. Enter Wikipedia. "Advent is the season observed in many Western Christian churches, a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas." Basically, a month-long countdown to Christmas. Apparently, advent calendars are very popular, especially homemade crafty ones! I spent an hour looking at great advent calendars. Here are some of my favorites:

Dixie cups and tissue paper:


Mini-muffin tin:


Envelopes:


But, as usual, my time and energy were limited so I didn't do anything this fancy. Instead, I bought a big bag of Hershey kisses and otherwise used recycled materials.



I printed two coloring pages - one for Pesach and one for Shavuot.





Then, I divided a piece of oak tag into 49 squares:



Then, I wrapped two Hershey's kisses (one for Avi, one for Maya) in red cellophane (leftover from Shmot) and gold ribbon (leftover from Terumah)MANY times. This was way too time-consuming and the girls couldn't do it themselves. Next time, I will use tins, or cups, or envelopes or something that they can fill easily themselves.

The idea of course is for us to happily and diligently count Omer together every night as a family and then eat chocolate. Although the chart hangs prominently on our front door, we STILL haven't been consistent! But, when we do, it is fun. Better next year.



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BAMIDBAR

May 16, 2010, 9:46 pm
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TRIBAL FLAGS AND MUFFINS

It feels good to start a new sefer! I feel relieved and re-energized by starting Sefer Bamidbar. This parsha has lots of lists and numbers but it also introduces us to the concept of the 12 tribes and the design of the encampment in the desert which is fun and interesting.

The girls were already familiar with the concept of the 12 sons from Parshat Vayetze so I now wanted to introduce them to the concept of the twelve tribes that ultimately descended from those original twelve. The word "tribe" was surprisingly tough to explain to Maya - I used lots of metaphors like family, group, etc. We looked at pictures of how the Machane (camp) was laid out. I mainly used this one that I found in the text of a dvar torah on Bar Ilan's website by Gabi Cohen:



Then, we moved onto flag making. I found these great little images of the tribes' symbols. We simply colored them in, cut them out, and attached them onto toothpicks.





This made for a great project but I also wanted to demonstrate where the tribes were situated. In a stroke of genius, I realized that muffin tins contain the magic number 12! I was going to make cupcakes with frosting but since we always have rotting bananas laying around, we made chocolate chip banana muffins instead (at least they sound healthier)



When the muffins were cool, we placed three muffins (we pretended they were tents!) to the North, three to the South, three to the West, and three to the East.



Finally, we put our flags into our muffin-tents.







I am not always thrilled with how our projects turn out, but this one was definitely a winner. As always, the best part of the project for the kids was EATING it!



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BEHAALOTCHA

May 30, 2010, 2:20 pm
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Menorah Shapes and Game

Exciting news for those of you who would actually like to USE the ideas that I post here but are frustrated because they are always posted only AFTER the week's Parsha...my Parsha crafts will now be available on a new website called "Challah Crumbs!" This website was recently created by a friend of mine who lives in Israel and she asked me to contribute my Parsha craft ideas. I am thrilled to do this but the only catch is that I have to get them to her a week IN ADVANCE - challenging for me since my ideas have typically been brainstormed the night before or the morning of... So now, I I will just continuously be teaching my kids the parsha for the upcoming week (they don't know the difference!) So, check out the website and you can already see NEXT week's project...amazing. You will still have to look at this blog if you want to hear my parental and educational musings and photos of my cute kids.

Parshat Behaalotcha is chock-full of good stuff but I decided to focus on the first few verses which describe the commandment for Aaron to light up the Menorah in the Mishkan. The Menorah seemed like an obvious choice for a project. I immediately started googling images of the Menorah but realized that I wouldn't be able to use any of them for the "Challah Crumbs" website because of copyright issues. So, I a proud to say that I just went ahead and designed my own in a word document using auto-shapes. I think it came out pretty darn good for someone who is not a graphic designer!

My idea was to make the Menorah using basic shapes like circles and triangles and let the girls cut out and glue these shapes onto the Menorah to fill it in.





Maya was able to do this but Avital was happy just coloring in the picture...



Then, we were ready to play the game - "Pin the flame on the Menorah!" Since we did this project on a Sunday morning, it was a family affair...











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PARSHAT SHELACH

June 2, 2010, 11:33 am
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ISRAEL MAP MOSAIC

Two public service announcements:
1) I have added a sidebar that lists the entries from this blog according to CRAFT which I think is a nifty idea.
2) I have received a very nice shout-out from homeshuling. Thank you!

This week's parsha is all about the 12 spies being sent into the Land of Israel to check it out. Basically, the Land gets mixed reviews. I assume that the timing of this parsha with the controversial news now coming out of Israel will be the source for many a Rabbi's sermon this week.

This parsha is especially relevant for our family since we are moving to Israel this summer. In addition, we feel somewhat like "scouts" on behalf of other American families who we hope will join us in building a new community in the Negev. (Please come!!!)

So, I wanted to make a map of Israel with the girls this week. A long time ago, I had flipped through Rosie O'Donnel's book Crafty U at Barnes and Noble (no, I didn't buy it) and came across this project and it had stuck with me ever since. So, one sleepless night (there are many of those nowadays), I decided that I would use dried beans and the like to design the map of Israel.

I did a trial run of this without the kiddos since I had to get the idea into Challah Crumbs and I wanted to experiment a bit.

First, I tried to figure out what I could use for the blue of the waters. When I came up empty, I decided that I would have to dye or paint the food items. Having no idea how to do this - guess what - I googled. I learned that the best method for dyeing dried pasta is to put the pasta in a big ziploc, add a few drops of food coloring, and one teaspoon of rubbing alcohol. Priding myself in actually possessing (and locating) all of those items in my home, I tried it and it worked easily and perfectly. I dyed white rice blue and Israeli couscous (I thought that was a cute touch) green.



I then cut up an old Huggies diaper box as my base.



I drew an outline of the map of Israel - copying from images that I found online.



Then, I just starting gluing section by section...







...until, walla -


I was surprised and thrilled by how it came out. The girls freaked out when they saw that I had "done Parsha" without them. We ultimately did do this project together but, let's just say that they used a little more poetic license than I did.

Maya decided that she wanted to do a rainbow, but she said that it was a rainbow IN Israel. Close enough, I guess.





Avital, well, she just went freestyle...



Although, as always, it was challenging for me to "let go" and allow them to play, I did let them do as many mosaics as they wanted and we now have a nice collection.



Now, how do I tell them that these will NOT be going with us to Israel...
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PARSHAT KORACH

June 25, 2010, 4:40 pm
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AARON'S BLOSSOMING STAFF

Yes, I am a little behind schedule. But, it is not because we haven't been doing Parsha Projects around here. Lehefech - just the opposite. We have been all Parsha, all the time. Between working for g-dcast and helping out at Challah Crumbs, there seems to be only so much time I can dedicate to thinking, writing, and crafting about the Parsha. So, actually working with my own kids on Parsha has suffered a bit - mainly in my taking the time to photograph their works in progress, which of course I think is the best part of this blog!

My first idea for this week's parsha was to somehow recreate the earth swallowing up Korach and his followers. Some kind of volcano or earthquake science project? But, I decided (once again) that this wasn't one of the narratives I was jumping to tell my kids.

So, instead I focuses on a brief episode in the Parsha in which Aaron's rod of staff, representing the holy tribe of Levi, "puts forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds (Bamidbar 17:8). My kids already think of staffs as very biblical objects - they associate them with Pharaoh and Moses.

Making the staff was SUPER easy. I just used electrical tape to wrap two paper towel rolls and attach them together:



Then, I glued on pink tissue paper flowers and leaf and almond shapes cut out of foam paper.





It came out very pretty and it now lives in the playroom where the girls use it in various forms of dress-up and make believe.

In retrospect, I might have chosen to use real leaves, flowers, and almonds to decorate the rod. That certainly would have expanded the project since we could have spent time collecting these things outside. But, on the other hand, such a project would have been trashed by now...
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PARSHAT CHUKAT

June 25, 2010, 5:04 pm
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PAPER PLATE SPIRAL SNAKES

Crafting a red heifer (or a parah adumah) seems like the most obvious idea from this week's parsha, especially after seeing Julie Seltzer's parah adumah challah! But, I couldn't imagine trying to explain the concepts of tumah and taharah as they relate to this ritual!

So, instead, we focused on another weird animal story in the parsha. Its short, so I will just quote the whole thing here:

And G-d sent poisonous snakes among the people, and they bit the nation, and many perished of the people of Israel. And the people came to Moshe, and they said, “we have sinned, because we spoke against G-d and against you; pray to G-d that He take away from us the snakes.” And Moshe prayed on behalf of the nation. And G-d said to Moshe, “make for yourself a snake and put it on a pole, and it will be that anyone bitten will see it, and live.” And Moshe made a copper snake (nachash nechoshet), and set it on a high pole, and it was that if a snake bit a man, and he stared at the copper snake, that he lived. Numbers 21:6-9


The most obviously problematic aspect of this passage is that the copper snake seems kinda idolatrous-y, no? Well, apparently, as long as the command to fashion objects out of precious metals comes directly from God - like the Keruvim - then it is not avodah zara.

So, it was snakes for us instead of cows. I found this VERY easy and fun way to make snakes. All you need is a cheap paper plate. My original plan was to make just the copper snake but that didn't go so well. First of all, I didn't have any copper-colored anything. So, I used the leftover gold glitter paint that we had (close enough). But, I was impatient and didn't wait for it to dry so it was a big mess but you can get the idea...



Then I decided that this project was so easy that we should just make a whole bunch of snakes, poisonous and all. I realized that the easiest thing to do is to use markers when the paper plate is still intact and THEN cut it in a spiral shape. The results are really cute:





We made and hung lots of snakes and they are still up in our dining room. And, now I have a package of paper plates that are great for puppets, masks, etc.

I was very excited to see another "mama" do this parsha project over at Adventures in Mama-Land - yay!




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PARSHAT BALAK

July 1, 2010, 2:46 am
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DONKEY PUPPET

We are big fans of this Parsha since Andy is its g-dcast narrator. Check it out! Needless to say, the girls have watched their father's cartoon numerous times so they know this parsha has something to do with a donkey.

Anyway, you can't NOT do a donkey craft for Parshat Balak! Thankfully, there were a million donkey craft ideas on the internet, thanks yet again, to the Christian Bible. Apparently, Christians are very into donkeys since Jesus apparently spent alot of time riding on one. There is even an entire website called Bible Donkeys.

Kids love talking animals and they love puppets so this seemed like the perfect opportunity for a good old-fashioned paper bag puppet. I think that he came out super cute. I would listen to what he had to say...

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PARSHAT PINCHAS

July 14, 2010, 3:02 am
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DAUGHTERS OF TZELAFCHAD PAPER DOLL CHAIN

Since my "classroom" is made of two little girls- who also happen to be my daughters - it was a pretty easy decision for me to focus on the story of the Daughters of Tzelafchad narrated in this week's parsha.

I decided to do paper dolls again since they are easy and the girls just love doing dress-up doll things. This time though I decided to get some scraps of materials so that we could make them fancy skirts and dresses.



For some reason, Maya really enjoyed learning the names of the five girls - Machlah, No'ah, Chaglah, Milkah and Tirtzah. She decided which "doll" was which girl and we wrote their names on their backs. On a whim, I put a few pieces of magnet tape on the back of the dolls so now they hang on our fridge and we are reminded and inspired by their "feminist revolution!"
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PARSHAT MATOT-MASAI

July 14, 2010, 3:20 am
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COTTON BALL SHEEP

In an email to the editor of Challah Crumbs, I wrote "Parshat Matot stinks for kids crafts ideas…Ill see what I can come up with but I am not optimistic…" The parsha spends alot of time on vows and war and I was not very inspired. For preschoolers, I am looking for concrete objects like people, stars, food, clothing, or animals - especially animals. So, I looked again and I found...sheep! In Parshat Matot, the tribes of Reuven and Gad ask Moshe for the lands east of the Jordon so that they can have more land for their cattle. So, all I had to do was figure out how to make lots and lots of sheep!

Thankfully - yet again - not only do Christian Sunday School teachers love donkeys, they also love sheep (Jesus is the good shephard, the parable of the lost sheep..) Lamb crafts are especially popular for Easter time.

So, luckily, I had an easy time finding a sheep craft that used all stuff that we already had at home - toilet paper rolls and cotton balls. I wanted to do a model one for Challah Crumbs but I couldn't exactly remember what a sheep should look like. Andy reminded me of the image from the mattress commercials:



Our version came out super cute:





I used a mini-plastic kiddush wrapped in black felt for the nose. I have no idea why we had this grassy material in the house but it made for perfect pastureland...
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PARSHAT DEVARIM

July 21, 2010, 3:45 am
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PARSHAT SHOFTIM

July 30, 2010, 3:50 am
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HANDPRINT TREE

This is my first attempt to do a parsha project while living in someone else's house in Israel, without our stuff, feeling very unsettled. My connection to the internet is sketchy. I don't have any of my basic art supplies. And, I am not a car ride away from Michael's! But, thankfully, Israel does have a surprising number of little craft stores. At this point, I limited myself to buying some basic paper and paints. I don't even know what kind of paints I bought, if they are washable, etc, but we will use them outside and they will have to do.

In this week's parsha, there is the prohibition against destroying fruit-bearing trees because "haadam etz hasadeh." We talked about how trees and people are alike and how we have to be kind to both. We made these pretty tree prints using our forearms, hands, and fingers.





On Shabbat, a bunch of kids were whacking a tree and Maya came over to me and whispered in my ear: "They are not being nice to the tree like it says in the Parsha." That's my little Goody Two-Shoes!
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PARSHAT KI TETZEI

August 1, 2010, 4:01 am
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EDIBLE BIRDS NEST

This is our second week of trying to do Parsha Projects under less than ideal circumstances. First of all, it is crazy hot!!! More importantly, we are still unsettled, living out of suitcases, in someone else's space. But, this parsha presented a no-brainer in terms of subject matter. I knew that I wanted to do something with the beautiful mitzvah of "shiluah haken" or sending away the mother bird. I started google-imaging "birds nest craft" and came across the idea of an edible birds nest. There were a number of different versions. I knew the girls would love the kind that seemed to be a popular Easter treat - a bird nest cookie made with Chow Mein noodles. But, alas, no Chow Mein noodles easily accessible in Israel, at least not in the Gush. So, I had to come up with an alternative. I bought a bag of pretzel sticks but I was worried that they would be too thick. Then, in the cereal aisle, I saw bran cereal sticks - they were perfect!

We melted peanut butter and chocolate chips together and mixed in the bran sticks. Then, we just made balls, made an indentation with our fingers in the middle, and stuck them in the freezer to firm up.

At the supermarket, I pondered what to use for the eggs. Most recipes called for white jelly beans. Those were not easy to find around here. But, Israel had lots of alternatives in the candy section - I bought white mentos, tic tacs, and kliks - so we had lots of different tastes, sizes, and shapes of eggs!



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PARSHAT NETZAVIM-VAYELECH

August 7, 2010, 4:15 am
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PARSHAT HAAZINU

August 20, 2010, 4:17 am
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ISRAEL DIORAMA

We are finally in our new home! And, more important, our "stuff" has arrived. And, along with our stuff came the hundreds of BOXES that it was packed in. Andy and I worked like maniacs to unpack everything with the goal of just getting everything OUT of the boxes.





In the midst of all of this, I still wanted to produce a parsha project - both for the girls and for Challah Crumbs. I knew that I wanted to focus on Moshe looking into the land of Israel but I was not sure how I wanted to depict this scene. It was Andy's idea - maybe inspired by the boxes around us - to make a diorama. I wasn't sure what a diorama was (or how to spell it) but I quickly found out that it is basically making any kind of scene using a box. Since I had plenty of those around (but not much else except some scrapbook paper), I got to work.

This is what I came up with...



I added a figure of Moshe looking into the land. The girls had fun folding Moses up and down, alternating between saying "Moses is dead" and "Moses is alive" -



The girls each made dioramas of their own but I let them do whatever they wanted which meant they made...princess castles. Oh well.
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PARSHAT NOACH

October 21, 2010, 12:08 am
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RAINBOW NECKLACES AND COOKIES!

We have entered our second year of Parsha Projects. Last year, we started with Lecha Lecha so we missed the colorful opportunities that Parshat Noach provides! So many options for crafts - arks, doves, animals, water. But, I went with the most obvious - rainbows! First, I dyed one bag of pasta. It is so easy and comes out so beautiful! We now have a huge bag of colored pasta that we can use for all sorts of projects - jewelery, mosaics, etc.







Since the girls are pretty into beading, we first made rainbow necklaces:



We had so many noodles that we also made a rainbow just by gluing them onto a piece of cardboard...







As if we did not have enough rainbows around, I was determined to make rainbow cookies for Shabbos. Someone cited this recipe
on Challah Crumb's Facebook page and it looked easy and fun. The first step, dyeing the dough was definitely fun and easy:





But, when it came time to work with the dough, we were in trouble. The dough was just sticky and mushy. It was just a mess, a disaster, a flop. So, as often happens in times like this, Andy stepped in to try to save the day.



He froze the dough which helped a bit but it was still incredible frustrating to work with. We managed to put together some things that sort of looked like rainbows...





I was especially proud of this one that brought back San Francisco memories...



As always, what I considered to be a flop, the girls considered to be a masterpiece!
Perspective.



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