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