Shabbos is coming...

Enjoy this little Shabbat activity pack in preparation for a Shabbos approaching, where the world will be home with their families and the streets will be quiet. Stores with be closed and many of us will have our phones turned off. Enjoy this island in time, away from the news and the Whatsapps and the memes etc. Enjoy the quiet.

Click here to download My Shabbat Activity Pack

Shabbat Shalom and Good Shabbos,

Beautiful Dvar Torah Book for Kids- a Book Review

Let your child shine at the Shabbos and Yom Tov table!

This is a beautiful compilation of Divrei Torah written in a clear and simple style for children to read and share at the Shabbos table.

Here is a sample Dvar Torah from Parshas Lech Lecha:

The font is large, the words and ideas are simple. This book is such a wonderful addition to your Shabbos table.

Books can be purchased

Here

and Here

Habe a wonderful week!

Always,

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,

Getting the Kids to Help for Shabbos

On Fridays I try to get extra cleaning and sometimes cooking help. On the one hand, this is really great as I really need the help, but on the other hand, I realize that my kids are not as involved in getting the house ready for Shabbos as I'd like them to be.

So this past Friday morning, I sat down with the crew and with a pen and paper asked each kid what they would like to do to help get the house ready for Shabbos.

Surprisingly, the kids jumped at the opportunity to either make a dish or set up the candles or do something that they would like to do. And now there is no going back.

I made this cute "My Special Shabbos Job" chart to put up, I laminated it and now every Friday morning, we will write each childs name and the job they will be doing to help get the house ready for Shabbos. And this does not include cleaning their bedrooms- that's a given!

So here is the chart, feel free to print and enjoy~

Have a wonderful week!

Always,

Fabulous Shabbos Sheets

The folks over at The Famous Abba contacted me to do a review on their weekly 'Super Shabbos Sheet'.

They sent me a few weeks of Super Shabbos Sheets and they are simply wonderful.

Each color printable Shabbos Sheet is on the weekly parshah.

It includes:
- Middah of the month
-Parshah skit ideas
-a crossword
-Week in review
-Synopsis of the parshah
-a wordfind
-a word scramble
-you be the judge
-historical timeline
-spot the difference
-Shabbos melacha
-Gematria

ALL of this on one sheet. Pretty awesome.

CLICK HERE to check out this weeks Super Shabbos Sheet for Parshas Re'eh and try it out with your kids.

If you want to subscribe to their weekly Super Shabbos Sheet, CLICK HERE to go directly to their website and CLICK HERE to like their Facebook page. And feel free to leave a comment on how much your family enjoyed the Famous Abbas Super Shabbos Sheet!

Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos!

Always,

Why I love Shabbos

I will be very honest with you and tell you that when my kids were all small, Shabbos was actually my very least favorite day of the week. There, I said it.

To me, instead of it being my day of rest, which it really should be, it was a day that I had to figure out how to entertain these little people who were not yet capable of entertaining themselves, while hosting guests, and while my very little kids would nap in the afternoon, I always had a 4 or 5 year old I needed to be there for.

I would count down the minutes until Shabbos ended and be thankful that I had an entire week until the next one arrived.

It is a little embarrassing to be saying this, but the only reason I am saying it is because I know there are moms out there who feel the same way I used to feel. And this blog post is for all of those moms to know that this feeling will not last forever.

In fact, Shabbos has become my absolute favorite day of the week now. And this is why:

I get to sleep in until 8am. I know, its 8am. But to me, that's sleeping in. My husband wakes up with the crew at 6am (yes, I have a bunch of early birds in this house) and they all have a full on Cholent party. I'm serious. They sit around the table and all eat a huge bowl of Cholent. At 6am. They look forward to it all week.

I don't have to cook. In an earlier post, I wrote how breakfast is a big deal in my house. No cereal and milk in this neck of the woods. Oh no, we have waffles, pancakes, french toast, muffins, eggs. Breakfast is a full on banquet here, which I am only too happy to make every morning, with the help of my little chefs. But on Shabbos, I come into the kitchen with a hot cup of coffee waiting for me. Kids are all fed and happy and I actually get to sit on the couch and drink my coffee in peace.

Did I just mention sitting on the couch? During the week, the only time I get to sit on the couch is when I am reading to my kids, which I absolutely love to do. But on Shabbos, when I sit on the couch, its to read a book or a magazine, quietly, to myself. It's the only time that I read actual books. During the week, there is always SOMETHING to get done and laying on the couch, feet reclined, and reading a book is not exactly on the agenda.

You CAN'T work. Yes, for all those who complain that you can't do X,Y, and Z on Shabbos, I say 'I know, how GREAT is that???' We CAN'T do laundry, we CAN'T wash dishes unless we need them, we CAN'T vacuum, we CAN'T go online, we CAN'T talk on the phone, we CAN'T drive- I mean, how AWESOME is that? A day to simply relax.

We eat as a family. During the week, my kids eat much earlier then my husband and I so we don't get to really sit down as a family and have a full on meal together like all the psychologists say families should. Everyone seems to be turning out pretty normal so I am not too worried. But on Shabbos, we eat as a family, and its wonderful. Granted, there is fighting and yelling because we are a normal family with a bunch of kids, but there is also lots of singing and laughter to go along with that and we all really appreciate and love it.

I get to hang out with friends. As in, sitting on the couch with a cup of tea and have actual conversations while the kids play outside. During the week, I just don't have nor make the time to socialize. I do 'Girls Night Out' once a month, but going out at night is really tiring for me so having friends come over on Shabbos, be it for lunch or afternoon tea is just so enjoyable. I know that I have nothing else that needs to be done so I can really enjoy my time to catch up and chat.

No cell phones. Need I say more?

We play games and take family walks. I know a lot of families have 'Game Night'- well, we have 'Game Shabbos Afternoon after Mommy and Daddy have finished Napping.' How do I get a nap you ask? We have a Shabbos party that the kids run. We have healthy nosh, including coconut milk ice cream, and the kids are now old enough to run it by themselves. One dishes out the ice cream, the other the snacks and they love it. All this time, I nap. Then we play games. Rummy, Chess, Shesh Besh/Backgammon (my 6 year old shocks every Israeli who plays her), Linkety, Battle Ship, Sorry and a few more. Some weeks, its just one game, others, its a few more. But its really fun!

So for all you moms who have a hard time on Shabbos with the little ones, those little ones will grow up to be pretty awesome kids that you can really have fun with. Hang in there, it gets pretty amazing~~~

Wishing you all a wonderful week,

Always,

Shabbat Menu for You!

Every Thursday I sit down, take out the nearest notepad or piece of paper and write out my Shabbos menu for the upcoming Shabbos. I stick it on the fridge, forget to throw it out and end up with 10 little papers with different weeks Shabbos menus all over the fridge.

So I decided to make this template that I printed out, laminated and stuck on the fridge with a dry erase marker hanging next to it (attached to a magnet). Like this, every time I need to write out my Shabbos menu, I have the template and can just fill in the blanks- and erase it each week.

Feel free to download it here and use it for yourself~

And don't forget, 2 more weeks until the FOUR Giveaway winners for the Simply Fun Games are announced!!! Click here to enter!

Have a great week~

Always,

Parshas Shemos and Our Shabbat Box

My kids absolutely LOVE this Parshah. Actually, the entire Chumash Shemos is pretty great to learn since it is familiar to the kids, being that we learn about it on Pesach and Shavuot as well.

Here are a few things we have done in learning about this weeks Parshah, Parshas Shemos:

Here's the story of Baby Moshe in a sensory box. We used blue glass marbles for the water with little plastic fish inside. We had a little plastic baby in the basket as baby Moshe and used Mitzvah Kinder as Princess Basya (with a pipe cleaner attached to her as her "stretched out arm") and Miriam, watching her baby brother. I had these cool green fuzzy things we used as the river bank. My daughter LOVES sensory boxes. She actually plays out the entire story and loves holding, feeling and finding all the cool little things inside.

Here are some super easy puzzles I made for this Parshah. I downloaded and printed out 3 pictures of this weeks parshah from www.chinuch.org. I made the sizes 5x7. I then laminated them and using a hot glue gun, glued large Popsicle sticks to the back of each picture. I then used a knife to cut along each stick to separate the pieces of the puzzle, and voila- super cool custom made puzzles for the parshah! Kids loved them. They even mixed all three puzzles together and put them back together again to make it more challenging.

Here, we used the movable Hebrew alphabet to make a few words. You can use those plastic magnetic Hebrew alphabet letters too. I just took the letters, spelled out the words on the actual copy machine and made a copy. I laminated it so it will last. The kids then found the correct letters and vowels and placed them on the matching one on the paper.

We made a burning bush using real tree branches which the kids had a great time collecting from outside. We cut up flames from tissue paper and glued it all on to look like a burning bush.

It came out looking more like a tree in the fall, but to the kiddos its a bush on fire, so that's all that counts:)

We then spent a good chunk of time finding all the different ways to make pyramids. Here, we made one out of colored squares...

...Plastic Tubs (you can use plastic bowls or cups too)

Magnet toy...

Geo-board...

and Wedgits...

And here is a GREAT book about this weeks Parshah:

I also put something together today which I have been meaning to do for a LONG time...

I made Our Shabbat Box--- it's a special box (in our case, a medium size trunk we got from a friend that I have been trying to figure out what to put inside) and it is filled with books, toys and games that we only use on Shabbat. It gives the kids something to look forward to and they don't get bored with the things inside since they know they can only play with it one day a week.

You don't need to go out and buy stuff, just take some of the kids books, games and toys and put them aside (obviously make sure the games/toys/books are not electronic).

Here are some great books to fill your Shabbat Box up with:

Here are some great toys to fill up your Shabbat Box with:

Here are some great games to put in your Shabbat Box (appropriate for Shabbat):

Feel free to throw some ideas this way in regard to this weeks Parshah as well as fun stuff you have included in your Shabbat Box!

Wishing you all a great week,

Alef Bet Bingo Give-Away! and Botany with Nancy Larson and Shabbat Activity Pack

Yes, its been a while, but life gets busy as we all know and I have finally found a few moments to blog-

So lets start of with the fun stuff!

I am making an Alef Bet Bingo giveaway to one lucky reader!

Aleph Bet Bingo plays like a conventional bingo game, but used the Hebrew aleph bet. Cobines two games in one: Aleph-to-Lamed and "Aleph-to-Tof."

Ages 3+, 2 to 14 players.

Here's how to enter!

You can do one or all of the following, but let me know which ones so I can enter you in the drawing~

1- Subscribe to my blog

2- Tell one other person about this giveaway (tweet, FB, your blog etc.)

3- Tell me one or more fun ways you teach the Hebrew Letters /Hebrew Reading to your kids

Drawing will be held next Sunday, December 26th and will be picked via random.org and I will post the winner that night-

Good Luck!

******

Now, this is what we have been up to lately:

We are keeping up with the weekly Parshah using My Parshah Reader and The Little Midrash Says. We practice our Herbrew Reading using the Osios book as well as the Siddur. We have done a few Parshah projects which I have not taken photos yet, but will post when I do-

Since TuBishvat is a few weeks away, we have begun learning about plants and trees. We are using the Nancy Larson Science kit that was sent to us for Review which is just so fabulous. I know she prefers the unit to be studied in the order that she has put it in which makes perfect sense, but the type of homeschool that we do, it just works for us to do the different subjects at certain times-

The kit comes with an entire unit on Botany, including a bag with pine cones, a tree cookie with a looking glass and 3 great books on trees: Peterson First Guide to Trees,Trees to Paper and The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree which the kids love. There is also a booklet on Botany as well as review worksheets. It is done in such a simple, well thought out way that it was a pleasure to teach and the kids were so engaged, they just loved it!

Here are a few books and a CD that we will be reading and listening to over the next few weeks:

I know its early, but it works for us right now:) We live in a tropical climate and so we took a walk through the neighborhood the other day looking for a Deciduous tree... boy, if only I had known what a mission that would become! We finally found a peach tree in someones yard and managed to pick up a few colored leaves to make a project with for fall- but the rest of the neighborhood is filled with Evergreens!

This week we will do some bark rubbings and looking at the difference between trees and shrubs. I hope to post some pictures of our adventures~

Oh, and before I forget, here is a fun Shabbat Activity Pack I made for my munchkins- feel free to print it out for yours!

Click Here to Check it Out!

Wishing all a wonderful week,