Wednesday, February 24, 2010

On Purim - Story and Craft

We read Cathy Goldberg Fishman's On Purim, for our stART (story + art) project this week. As you might guess from the title, this story is about the Jewish celebration of Purim, as seen through the eyes of a little girl, preparing to celebrate with her family. It explains how many of the modern traditions, are tied into the history of the holiday, and introduces the outsider to the story of Esther.

We learned about things like Adar (the sixth month of the Hebrew calendar), groggers (handheld noisemakers used to blot out the sound of the name Haman, the villain of Purim), hamantaschen (tasty cookies, given as gifts during Purim), megillah (a parchment scroll, with the story of Esther), nosh (Yiddish for eat), shalach manot (sending gifts to friends and the poor), and tzedaka (money given to help the poor). Happily there is a glossary, with a pronunciation guide, at the back of the book.

We were especially taken by the idea of people shaking noisemakers, and booing, every time the name of the story's villain was mentioned, so we incorporated that into our craft project.

I printed a puppet template of five of the Purim characters, Vashti, Esther, King Ahesuerus, Mordecai, and Haman (boo!), on card stock. The girls colored them with colored pencils...


...and then cut them out (with my help)...


...and glued them to craft sticks.


We tied a ribbons with a couple of bells, to the sticks of the Haman puppets, before the girls glued their Hamans on, as a built in grogger, of sorts.


Then, the little ones headed off, to act out the story of Esther (or their version of the story, anyway)...

...while their older sister colored in an Esther of her own...


...to add to our history timeline.


For more childrens story stretching arts and crafts, check out this week's stART link up, at a Mommy's Adventures.



It's great to be a homeschooler

8 comments:

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

This is awesome. You could also get out some Halloween outfits, because as I recall Purim is a lot like Halloween in Israel. Totally a children holiday and also an excuse for some adults to drink too much wine. In other words - fun times for all :)

Ticia said...

I love it! I love the story of Esther, and I'll have to come back to this when we study her someday in Bible study.

Marcee said...

I was looking at your timeline and I saw that your presidents were really close together. What increments in years do you suggest for American History? We plan on doing that next year.

Playing by the book said...

The puppet show looks like it was lots of fun for everyone!

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

Marcee - I like 1 1/2 inches per year on an American history timeline. It fits nicely around a small room, but gives plenty of room for each presidential term :)

Erica said...

I love it! I was excited to see another family learning about Purim that is what I did with my daughter this week. I love the puppets! I will have to remember them for when my little one gets bigger.

Brimful Curiosities said...

Oohh, a puppet show. Such fun. Thanks for the Purim information. I learn something new every day!

Unknown said...

I'm POSITIVE that puppet show was historically accurate, right? ;0)