Parshas Shemini- Kosher Animals

Here's a peek at a few things we've been up to/will be doing this week for Parshas Shemini:

Here is the kids adorable Har Sinai Sefirah countdown chart that THEY made today. It was so sweet how they all orchestrated it together, having one make all the flowers, the other painted, another went to go pick some real flowers to stick on- I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but its up on the wall and really precious, and the BEST part is that THEY did it all by themselves. Mom was just there to make sure the stapler, scissors and glitter didn't get too out of control:)

Kosher fish sorting. We took a magnifying glass to look at the fins and scales on the Kosher toy fish.

Kosher bird sorting:

Math- using sand paper numbers and little fish counters:

Animal Magnet Kosher sorting on a magnetic cookie sheet:

Learning the parts of the fish- concentrating on the fins and scales:

Now this was a really gross activity if you ask me, but my 3 year old LOVED it and spent A LOT of time with his little bug friends. The point of this activity was to remove all the bugs from the fruit and vegetables since bugs aren't Kosher (as if we'd eat them if they were!) I have quite the phobia of anything small and gross so setting this up really was not easy for me, even if all the bugs are plastic... but the little guy was in bug heaven, so here it is:

Here is just a classic Kosher/non Kosher animal sorting activity

These are some great books we are reading, and searching for all the Kosher animals. You would be shocked how many we found!

Click here for some cute worksheets on Kosher animals. Scroll down to the "Brachot" worksheets.

Just a little puzzle we did with the little ones:

These are fabulous stickers that my princess used to make a whole scenario on a farm. She left the non Kosher animals out and put them on another paper.

And just for fun...

Here is where you can get some of the things we are using:

Have a great week,

Jewish Preschool Activity Worksheets

While I truly believe that Preschoolers learn the best through play, there are some preschoolers out there who take the more academic route (my Little Einstein:) and actually LOVE doing worksheets- not all the time, but there are so many activity books out there for preschoolers but I couldn't find any Jewish Preschool Activity books so decided to make a few worksheets of my own- which worked out GREAT-and i based them all on the activities from the regular activity books, just used Alef Bet, Jewish concepts and Jewish pictures...

I printed them and put them in a binder and my Little Einstein loves his own little Jewish Activity Book!

So here they are, hope they are helpful to you-

Alef Bet WorkSheets

Balloon Match

Match the Picture to the Hebrew Letter

2 pages- match the Hebrew Letter to the Picture

Similar Letters- Match the letters to each other

Space Themed Alef Bet Worksheets (a a few others, custom made for my Little Einstein who loves anything Rockets, Astronauts etc!):

Match the Hebrew letter to the correct one in the Rocket

Match the Hebrew letter to the correct one in the Rocket Page 2

Match the Alef Bet stars to each other

Match the Alef Bet stars to each other Page 2

A Jewish Boys Uniform

Rocket Maze

More Advanced Alef Bet Worksheets- Circle the word that begins with:

Alef-Hey

Vav-Yud

Kaf- Samech

Ayin-Reish

Shin-Final Mem

Brachot worksheets:

Bracha: Hamotzi

Bracha: Mezonot

Bracha: HaEitz

Bracha: Adama

Circle the Kosher Animals

Circle the Kosher Animals #2

Cut out and stick all the KOSHER animals in the barn

Meat and Milk: Take a blue piece of paper and red piece of paper- cut out the meat products and stick them on the red paper, cut out the dairy products and stick them on the blue

Preschool Math with Jewish Pictures Worksheets:

Cut out the pictures and put them in size order - laminate the little cards to make them last longer!

Some more size order pictures

Number recognition: match the number to the correct amount of objects #1-6

Number recognition: match the number to the correct amount of objects #7-12

Circle the number of objects in each picture

Draw an X on the largest object, Circle the SAME objects

Draw an X on the largest object, Circle the SAME objects Page 2

I hope this is helpful to any Jewish Homeschooling Mama's out there for their preschoolers!

Souper Suppers and Keeping the Munchkins busy

Ok, I will admit, my kids are all picky eaters- except Munchkin- she LOVES veges, we're talking broccoli, cucumbers, tomatoes and more...

But the others- nope. Nothing doing.

So I got myself 2 cookbooks which I have listed below: The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious and from there, I got tons of great ideas how to hide great food in my kids favorite foods. In fact, I actually started a blog, but just couldn't keep up with it- but here it is, just a couple of ideas that I've done and worked like a charm- http://hidden-treasures-for-kids.blogspot.com/

And I try make a different vege soup with dinner every night so I know that they are getting a nice full serving of veges every day. I never use soup cubes, just plane old salt'n pepper with whatever veges I throw in there and puree. And they love Osem Soup Croutons that we find at the local Safeway supermarket (for a ridiculous price but I tell my hubby that its worth it if it gets the kids to eat the soup:)

And our cleaning help and babysitter both quit so this week has been so challenging... but thanks to a few great new toys that our good friends gave us (they are moving to Israel and getting rid of everything) the tots have been busy and happy which means mommy is happy too:)

I posted the toys that they gave us and highly recommend them-

Okay, my feet are up and I'm off to watch my Grey's Anatomy reruns (my hubby bought me the entire set!!!- yes, I am a total sucker for this show)

Here's to a great week and getting ready for the upcoming school year~

Power Chocolate Cupcakes!

Ok- we took a box of Dunkin Heins Devils Food Chocolate Cake mix...

We added:

1 1/3 cup of frozen spinach which I pureed with water (enough water to just cover the spinach and microwaved it for 30 seconds to soften the spinach)

1/2 cup of oil

3 eggs

3 Tbs wheat germ

Mix, pour into cupcake pan and bake for 20-30 minutes at 350

Kids LOVED them and I didn't feel as guilty as I usually do giving them chocolate cupcakes:)

Some Summer Jewish Activities

Since we concentrate on the Jewish Holidays and Parshah during the school year, we will be doing some fun activities, with a Jewish and meaningful twist~~~

We read about the Parshah every week, simply because Little Einstein loves loves loves it- and will throw in a Parshah project here and there, but here are some all round fun Jewish ideas:

My 5 Senses do Mitzvos!

• make a book of the 5 senses, one sense per page and make or find pictures of different mitzvos you do with each of the senses
• make a cutout person out of large construction paper and attach a mitzvah to each part of the body that that part performs
• using a mirror, help your cutie make a self portrait and discuss each part of the face and how each part does different mitzvos
• using glue and beans, have your cutie write their name on paper with the glue then glue the beans to make "braille" explaining what braille is and how it helps blind people see

Tzedakah!

• Using half water, half white vinegar, and YOUR supervision! clean pennies- your cutie will be amazed at how shiny and clean the copper gets
• Use an empty container (coffee, chocolate powder, matzah meal- any container with a lid) and decorate it with paint, tissue paper, markers etc. to make their own tzedakah box. Fill it through out the summer and at the end of the summer, go with your cutie to give the money to a place that needs it so they can see that all the money they collected is actually going to help someone

Mezuzah!

• show the cuties a real mezuzah and whats written on the parchment
• get feathers and paint and let cuties write with feathers on paper just like a sofer writes mezuzos
• out of clay, make a mezuzah case then paint it

Kosher!

• Collect old wrappers from kosher products and make a collage with all the different kosher signs
• cut out pictures of dairy and meat products from magazines and stick them in 2 different sections (one red, one blue)
• "Magnet Fishing" make fishing rods out of a stick, yarn and a magnet at the end. Make kosher fish with fins and scales and unkosher fish (octopus, eel, crab etc) and attach paper clips to them. Let the cuties go "fishing" and divide whatever they catch into kosher and unkosher piles

Brachot!

• Make copies from The Very Hungry Caterpillar (by Eric Carle) of all the foods he ate. Then make a book or chart with the different brachot and cut and paste each food into the various columns or pages

I hope to post some photos as we do each project~ Happy summer to all!