Parshat Vayera: Crafts, Projects, Activities

Many of this week's parasha's central themes like Hachnasat Orchim (showing hospitality to the stranger) and Avraham's travels were in last week's parasha as well. We focused on those concepts last week and you can find many related activities on my Parashat Lech Lecha post.

Here are some new ideas for Parshat Vayera.

Photo Source

Guest Catching- (Idea taken directly from Parasha Activities)

Activity: Everyone grabs part of a sheet, so it’s suspended in the middle. Explain that this is Avraham’s tent, and any guest that comes by must be brought into the tent. Throw the balloons into the air one at a time, while the kids run around with the sheet and catch them all. Make sure as each guest comes in, the old ones don’t fall out!

Salt art-Lot's Wife

(idea taken directly from the Examiner)

1. Draw or print a picture of a women on cardboard.

2. Pour salt into several small containers and color them with food coloring

3. Keep spreading thin layers of glue with paintbrush over small areas of the picture and sprinkle your desired color of salt. Shake off any extra salt.

4. Repeat until picture is complete and let dry.

5. If needed, use tempera or acrylic paint to define outlines.

More Indoor Activities for Kids

We continue to wish everyone an easy recovery from this storm. 

Hurricane Sandy is over, but she took her toll on many. Our hearts go out to those whose lives and homes were taken by this storm.

For those looking for more things to do with the kids at home for the next few days. Here are some science experiments and paint activities to try out:

Fill up Ziploc bags with finger paint for a no mess art activity.

 Clearly, taping it down to the table just meant rip it off and step on it, but it made for cool art.

Cup painting with stryofoam cups

Great idea for making the Olympic circles or can be used to make sporting balls for sports theme birthday.

Marble Painting

Place paper in metal tin and roll marbles around for fun abstract art.

Messy hands are inevitable with the marble painting.

Pour baking soda into a metal tin and have kids use medicine droppers filled with colored vinegar to see a sizzling chemical reaction.

Lastly, Carbon Dioxide filled Balloon: 

Use a funnel to fill half of a balloon with baking soda.

 Fill a bottle 1/3 of the way with vinegar.

 Carefully place balloon over bottle without letting baking soda into bottle.

Voila, the reaction between the baking soda and the vinegar creates carbon dioxide which inflates the balloon.

Rainy Day Activities

Here are some activities sorted by subject to keep the kiddos happy on a rainy day:

Art:

Van Gogh's starry night

Paint a starry night or any other scene by first using light colored crayons like white/peach, yellow to create images and then paint over it with tempera paint as seen here:

Check out kinderart.com for many art history lessons for kids

Science:

Make you own lava lamp

Check out Steve Spangler's site for instructions on the lava lamp and so many more science experiments.

Fine motor/Toddler:

Sorting just abbot anything will keep my lil toddler happy

Music: 

Bring out the instruments and have a blast

Click here for a Charlotte Mason approach to music appreciation  

Physical activity:

Build an indoor obstacle course

We used pillows to hop on, painter's tape on floor as tight rope, tunnels, and more

Would love to hear your rainy day activities!

Teaching Kids about Hurricanes

Here on the East coast we are all preparing for the wrath brought on by Hurricane Sandy. We are praying that everyone stays indoors and safe for the next few days.

If you would like to learn a little more about what hurricanes are and help your kids understand them, here are some suggestions.

For your preschoolers check out Sesame Street's Hurricane Episode

For older kids, watch this National Geographic Kids Video on Hurricanes

and make your own hurricane here

You can also do some easy hurricane science experiments for kids:

1. What is a hurricane?

Many large thunderstorms coming together over ocean water and swirling like a vortex. When this vortex becomes powerful enough, it is called a hurricane. 

Make your own hurricane in a bottle by attaching two soda bottles with a washer and some duct tape:

2. The Eye of the Storm: What is the strongest and weakest part of a hurricane?

You will need a large bowl, wooden spoon, and paper clip on a string. Stir the water in bowl and then dip the paper clip attached to the string in various parts of the bowl and track the difference in its movement.

4. How does wind speeds effect water depth?

Blowing through a straw over water in a pan and see the results. Click here for further details

Parshat Lech Lecha activity project and craft: Camping in Booklyn

In Parshat Lech Lecha, we read about Abraham dwelling in his tent and bringing in and caring for strangers.

We had a ton of fun role playing this dynamic in our homemade tent.

We got out our summer beach umbrella.

Draped some sheets over it and turned our beach umbrella into a cozy tent.

Once we started with the whole tent camping theme, I just ran with it. 

We made pink marshmallow and chocolate s'mores in our microwave.

Then we needed a campfire:

 So we painted paper towel rolls with brown acrylic paint, cut a slit through one roll and slid in the other roll. Slid in construction paper for the fire. Tissue paper would have done better, but we had none at hand. 

Our campsite is complete with our Ipad compass, canteen, s'mores, sleeping bag and campfire.

Lastly, in Parshat Lech Lecha Hashem promises that Abraham's children will be numerous like the stars in the sky. So we made some star arts and craft projects and brought some stars to our campsite.

Using our Dream Lites (now at Costco for 22.99) we were able to project a starry night on our tent.                        

Finished off with foam stars that we decorated with stickers and glitter glue. (I made the one in the middle)

I'd love for my readers to share photos of their lech lecha/tent/star projects, either home made or from their child's school. Please email them to me (speech12@gmail.com), and I will post them to my blog if received before Friday.