Menus!!!

I find it humerous when people come to my house or meet me in person and tell me how organized I am. They see the charts on my walls, my printable schedules and lists and it truly does give the impression that I am, indeed, organized.

But you see, the thing is, the reason I make and post all these charts is because I am so DISorganized and I need these things to help keep me focused and somewhat sane!

I am an avid follower and admirer of organizing and time management guru Rivka Caroline (author of From Frazzeled to Focused and www.sobeorganized.com/). She often says, in her lovely English accent,  'You need to make your life as boring as possible when it comes to setting up systems. So boring that you do not have to think.'

Lets translate that into my own life right now.

Its two and a half weeks until Rosh Hashana. Thats four entire Shabbos meals and about 54 meals to cook for my family. I have many other things going on in the next 2 weeks so the less I need to think about and plan, the better.

So today I sat down and made 3 menus: Rosh Hashana, Week day meals and Shabbos meals. I'm so happy to share them with you to give you ideas, inspiration or just the plain enjoyment in reading what we'll be eating for the next two and a half weeks and over the Holidays!

Rosh Hashana Menu

I get most of my recipes off of Pinterest and tweak them to my families liking. Feel free to search for them and tweak them to yours.

Shabbos Menu

 These are all my go to dishes. I make one type of fish, 2-3 dips, 2-3 salads, 1 soup, 1-2 Main dish, 2 sides and 1 dessert, always served with tea

Weekly Menu

~Enjoy~

Always,

Pre-Yom Kippur Easy Peasy Honey Cake

On the day before Yom Kippur it is customary to ask for and receive honey cake from someone—usually one’s mentor or parent.

One of the reasons given for this custom is that if it had been decreed, G‑d forbid, that during the year we should need to resort to a handout from others, the decree should be satisfied with this asking for food.

I received this recipe from a friend (thanks Rivky!) and tweaked it a bit which ended being the most delicious honey cake ever! It is super easy and moist- I hope you enjoy it!

Easy Peasy Honey Cake

1 box Duncan Hines Spice Cake mix

3 eggs

1/3 cup oil

3/4 cup Honey

1 cup Black Coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all ingredients together and bake for 30-35  minutes.

Enjoy and have a wonderful week!

 

Tap into Rosh Hashanah- a cute Rosh Hashanah Video for your Kids!

Adorable Rosh Hashanah Mobile

Okay, I made this for my kids last night and gave it to them to do today while I baked a bunch of Challahs. I didn't know it when I made it, but not only did they LOVE doing this, but it baught me like 45 MINUTES of time to bake!

Here it is with instructions, enjoy!

Rosh Hashanah Mobile- Click Here to print it out
1. Make sure to print it out on card stock or at least glue it onto some harder paper. You can also just laminate it if using regular paper.
2. Color each picture and explain how each picture connects to Rosh Hashanah
3. Cut out each picture including the Rosh Hashanah sign
4. Using a hole puncher, punch a hole at the top of each picture (you dont need to use every picture, up to the kids)  and punch holes in the circle on the Rosh Hashanah sign
5. Using string or yarn, tie it to each picture and connect it to the sign. Tie string to the top of the sign to hang it up on the wall. My 4 year old got frustrated threading the yarn through the holes so he just taped the yarn to each picture. It all worked out!

 Have fun and Happy Yom Tov prepping!

Better Late then Never!

I know, its only a few hours til Rosh Hashanah but maybe some of you have a few moments to spare to do a cute arts'n crafts project with your kids......

Well, if not for this year, there's always next year- enjoy!

Here are a few things we have done over the past few days/weeks:

We made a beehive using those little white cups as stamps then made a little bee out of pom poms, pipe cleaners and googly eyes:

A Shana Tova Card- this was awesome... using card board, stick on scotch tape in the shape of the Hebrew letters. Let the kids paint the entire paper how they wish and then remove the tape to have the letters revealed:

Just a little sorting activity in connection to the 6 days of creation- a basket of fish and birds, place the birds in the "sky" and the fish in the water:

The "sounds" of the Shofar (in no particular order):

Our Tashlich fish- although we used apple sponges to sponge print the scales, it came out really cool:

Just a simple apple collage- cut out a shape of an apple, have the kids cut up red and pink paper (or whatever color they want their apple to be) and glue on as a collage:

Honey Jars or Rosh Hashanah cards or any other fun ideas... take white paper, color with wax crayons all different colors- when the entire page is covered, take black crayon and color over the whole paper. Cut it out to any shape and use toothpicks to draw on the black to reveal the colors:

DIY Sand Art- this is fabulous! Take foam sheets with sticky backs. Use a pencil to draw a picture then using a small blade, cut out the picture through the paper. Gently remove each piece you have cut and sprinkle colored sand on it. It will stick to the sticky part of the foam. Ideas are endless, we have made so many of these- you can get the sticky foam from Walmart or any craft stores:

Simple counting activity using apples. This page is from My Rosh Hashanah Activity Pack for Toddlers

We made honey cakes with this awesome recipe- I printed and laminated it:

Rosh Hashanah Sensory Table:

You can find some of the stuff we used here:

And last but not least, the classic honey dish and honey jar- dish made from tissue paper and plastic plates, honey jar is a painted baby food jar:

Wishing eveyone a Happy, Healthy, Successful and Sweer New Year filled with all things Wonderful!

SHANA TOVA UMETUKAH!

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Activities and Printables

I am really excited to be getting my Montessori teachers certification through NAMC. It is so enjoyable, I actually look forward to studying:)

Here are a bunch of Montessori activities I have put together for my munchkins for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. At the end of the post is a link to all the printables you see in the photos. Feel free to download and print any of them you wish for your sweeties.

Apple sorting by color, red, green and yellow

Apple fraction magnets puzzles- red, green and yellow, whole, half and quarters

Creating hexagons with popcycle sticks to create a beehive (done on the floor)

using a picture of an actual beehive with bee's as a frame of reference

Sifting yellow sand and black rice into a glass jar, pouring the sand into empty bowl once all the yellow sand is sifted

(yellow and black, color of a bee)

Simple cutting exercise, either solid paper or squares with lines and various Jewish pictures

Dress and create people for Yom Kippur in white

Simple coloring pages, printed from www.torahtots.com

Thumb tacks on a picture, great for fine motor

Hebrew movable alphabet, using just the beginning sound of different miniature objects pertaining to RH and YK

Hebrew movable alphabet, spelling out the names of different miniature objects pertaining to RH and YK

Rosh Hashanah word and picture matching cards

Hebrew word and picture match

Simple hole punching on squares with various Jewish pictures on each pertaining to RH or YK

Pouring Yellow and Black rice through a funnel, alternating to create a bee in in a glass jar

Beginning Hebrew sound match with magnets on a cookie sheet

Number match with small pegs (good for sensory as well as counting)

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur sensory bin

contains:

a bee making 'honey'

apples, shofar

wine for kiddish

a fish in 'water' for tashlich

2 rams with horns for the kids to see clearly where a shofar is from

chicken and rooster for tashlich

gold coins for tzedaka

a lady with a siddur davening

shiny hearts scattered around indicating Ahavas Yisroel

and its all on a bed of clear glass stones

Create your own crown ('The King is in the field' and we crown Hashem King)

Pomegranate seed match- each match has a dot of the same color on the back for the child to use as control of error

(to make sure they did it correctly)

apple sorting using tongs

Using the tongs, dip a sponge in any color water, let it soak,

place in the garlic crusher and squeeze out water into any section of the empty round tray.

Can mix colors to create other colors

Here is the Link to all the Printables.

CLICK HERE

It is ONE pdf file, but you can pick and choose what you wish to print.

Hope this comes in useful and is helpful!

Rosh Hashanah Activity Pack

I made a few fun worksheets and put them together for my Little Einstein (Preschool age) and Munchkin (toddler)-

Feel free to download either or both and either print the entire package or just a few worksheets you think your little tykes will enjoy!

Rosh Hashanah Activity Pack for Preschoolers

Rosh Hashanah Activity Pack for Toddlers

Here is our Jewish Studies Weekly Routine

I did this for myself, to get a little clarity on what I need to do with the Little Tykes over the next few weeks.

This is just for Tishrei and not exactly a calendar, more of a schedule to follow. Note how there are no specific time slots- we kind of do things when the moments seem right (early in the morning, later afternoon)

Here it is:

and here is the PDF version

And these are some of the books, CD's and DVD's that we use in each subject that I highly recommend since my kids love love love them!

Alef Bet:

Parshah:

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah:

As we do each activity or project I will post more details about each one.

Hope its helpful or inspiring! More details to follow~