A Twist on Blessing Our Children

The "Chat Pack" was not at all what the kids wanted to do on Friday night. They were instead ready to share all they had learned about the tradition of a parent giving a blessing to their child. We too have a tradition each week around this special blessing. We give each child their own blessing in order of oldest to youngest. We do not take gender into account. After the blessing, each child shares something from the week that made them feel proud and we in return share something they did that made us feel proud. We began this tradition on Rosh Hashanah and have kept it up so far all year. I love watching them each week. Their personalities and priorities shine right through. There are weeks when someone is ready to burst with excitement and other weeks when they struggle to find something that made them really proud. Sometimes they try to guess what we will say before we share our thoughts. Sometimes in the buzz of a busy week, we forget to point out the positives. It was very clear as they shared the story of Jacob blessing his sons that they do understand how special it is!

Fun Questions for Shabbat from the Chat Pack for Kids

The kids are really enjoying our Friday night talks which our 4 year old calls "carpet time ." As Friday night begins this week, it means two weeks of no homework, no tests, no packing lunches and no running off at 7 am. I can't think of a better way to kick off our two weeks of family time than a few simple, open ended questions from the "Chat Pack for Kids." No, they are not related to the weekly Torah portion but they do show our kids that we think it's important to spend time together laughing and sharing with each other on Shabbat. Here are just two of the questions I picked out for our Shabbat talk this week:





1. If you could paint a giant mural on the ceiling of your bedroom, what scene or images would you paint?





2. If you could be guaranteed that one item you currently own would never break, wear out, or get lost, which item would you chose?





I can't wait to"chat" with my kids! Shabbat Shalom.

BTW- You can find these at
http://http//www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=a9_sc_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Achat+pack+for+kids&keywords=chat+pack+for+kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1292354477

Our Festival of Lights Dreidel Hunt

Materials:
1 bag of assorted dreidels
hand held flashlights
bags
1 dry erase board or paper and pencil


Step 1: Assign points for each dreidel category. We used 2 points for small wood dreidels, 5 points for colored plastic dreidels, 10 points for small painted dreidels, 15 points for dreidels with a "pey" from Israel, 20 points for jumbo wood dreidels, and 50 points for our very special dreidels created by professional artists.

Step 2: Tell the kids to hide in a room while you hide the dreidels.

Step 3: Turn out the lights, hand out the flashlights and let the fun begin.

Step 4: After all the dreidels are found, tally up the results.

WARNING: Rematch may be requested!

And...no one even asked for a gift tonight!

Enjoy!

Happy Hanukkah!

It Can Be Embarrassing... A Conversation for Parshat Vayigash

Each Friday night, we spend some time talking about the weekly Torah portion. The kids each share something with us. Our 9 year old daughter and 6 year old son often read and discuss something they learned in school. Our 4 year old son usually helps us read a relevant picture book.

Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses wrote a piece that was published on http://www.myjewishlearning.com/ titled "Not Embarrassing Others." It is really worth reading. It got me thinking. Before we can talk about how Joseph chose not to embarrass his brothers after so many years later and after all they had done, we really need talk about feeling embarrassed and making others feel embarrassed.

It is also a moment that we cannot let pass. It makes me wonder... does my 4 year old know what it means to be embarrassed? Has our our 6 (soon to be 7) year old and our 9 year old ever felt embarrassed ? They happen to live a fairly public life. It's probably important to start an open dialogue about this topic sooner rather than later. When will sharing stories about them be too embarrassing for them? Maybe it already is too embarrassing. I guess I am about to find out. The Torah portion Vayigash gives us a great way to start and continue this conversation.

So here's the plan...

1- Our 4 year old recently finished an author study of Robert Munsch so we plan to read "I'm So Embarrassed" by Robert Munsch.

2- We are going to fill a box with open ended prompts for them to answer to find out who, what, where and when they feel embarrassed.

3- We will read the section about Joseph and his brothers and begin to make our own connection.

I will let you know how it goes next week..

Shabbat Shalom.

Mix It Up with Some Hanukkah Games

We have a lot of fun adding games to our week of Hanukkah. Some of our favorites include:

-a dreidel hunt around our house (we even awarded bonus points for certain dreidels) or make it even more exciting hide chocolate gelt
-a dreidel spin off (a tournament with rounds- who can get their dreidel to spin the longest?)
-a Hanukkah matching game (easy to find-try Publix, Party City or Winn Dixie)
-Macabee Olympics (we took some of our favorite sport skills and turned them into events)
-a latka cook-off (we are a big food network family!)

If your kids like time on the computer, consider adding some Hanukkah fun to their computer time...

-a great interactive jigsaw puzzle of Hanukkah symbols
www.activityvillage.co.uk

-an interactive site for toddlers and preschoolers (click to spin the dreidel and watch it spin)
www.lil-fingers.com/holidays/hanukkah


-interactive concentration games along with many others
www.chabad..org/holidays/chanukah

Happy Hanukkah!

In Between the Candles and the Presents

We chose our candle colors, lit the chanukiyah and sang the prayers together. Now what? We didn't want to jump right into the gifts. So, we decided to ask each of our children to present something to our family after we lit the candles tonight. We were impressed how true they were to themselves. Our daughter played the song "I have a little dreidel" on her recorder. Our son prepared a "Stump My Family" Chanukkah Quiz, and our youngest son shared some Hanukkah songs he learned at school. It was nice to spend a few minutes celebrating what they had learned and watching them continue to identify and celebrate their individual strengths (and each other!). Happy Hanukkah!