Let's Celebrate Shavuot!

Shavuot celebrated the day God gave the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. In Israel, it is also connected to the season of the grain harvest. Today, the Shavuot celebration is made unique by the traditional consumption of dairy products like milk, cheese, and, of course, lots of cheesecake! Below we've collected some activities to teach children about Shavuot:

Mount Sinai Muffins
Teach children about Mount Sinai with this fun and edible craft! Make this easy by purchasing muffins and decorating them together, or go all out and bake them from scratch. Either way, this activity is sure to delight kids. This can also be made as a cake for a table centerpiece and family dessert! From Kveller.

Build Mount Sinai
If muffins won't work for your home or classroom, children can still build their own Mount Sinai using a paper or Styrofoam bowl, some paint, and colorful paper! You can also recreate the scene of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with just paper, crayons, and glue! From Bright Hub Education and Joyful Jewish.

Shavuot Flower Crowns
These beautiful flower crowns made from construction paper are great for the classroom or at home. Engage children in describing Mount Sinai, which was covered in beautiful flowers, while they make a colorful way to celebrate! From Hebrew Podcasts.

Tablets of Stone
Teach children about the Ten Commandments by making their own tablets of stone! Great for at home or in the classroom, this also reinforces counting and the Hebrew alphabet. From Joyful Jewish.

Shavuot Word Pomegranate
An activity to engage the entire classroom or family at once, this simple activity asks participants to come up with words and phrases associated with Shavuot to fill out an illustration of a pomegranate. A great way to create a visual reminder for all year 'round. From Hebrew Podcasts.

Printable Activity Book
This activity packet is great for younger children. In addition to teaching them about Shavuot and the Ten Commandments, it reinforces important skills like counting. Particularly useful for the classroom! From Jewish Homeschool.

Teach Shavuot Values
Kveller has some excellent ideas for teaching young children the important values of charity, loyalty, and kindness. Tell the story of the Book of Ruth to introduce these values, and reinforce them with these simple everyday reminders.

Test Your Knowledge!
If children have access to a computer at home or at school, they can test their knowledge of the Book of Ruth and the Shavuot story with a variety of quizzes and word matches online! Create a family or class challenge to see who can score the highest, or encourage children to improve on their own scores. From A Kid's Heart.

And, of course, read a good book! Kar-Ben has many unique and engaging books about Shavuot, from ones featuring Sammy Spider, to a photo story of children in Israel growing and harvesting their own wheat and making a cheesecake, to the story of little Mount Sinai. Find these Shavuot books and more on the Kar-Ben website!

Have You Met Sadie (and the Author Who Created Her)?

Wonderfully preciocious and charmingly sweet, to know Sadie is to love her. She worries all week long when she learns that her class will be climbing a mountain to celebrate Shavuot, relieved that it just turns out to be a hill behind her school. She solves the problem of inviting guests to dine in the family's sukkah at an early hour by inviting her stuffed animals as breakfast guests. In the newest book in the series--number 3 of 6 planned so far--Sadie artistic expressions in clay smash to bits by accident, yet she finds a way to salvage the pieces and make a new family tradition. Sadie's Sukkah Breakfast and Sadie and the Big Mountain have been embraced by readers who are looking forward to a new release this fall, Sadie's Almost Marvelous Menorah.

Sadie is the brainchild of Jamie Korngold, who is the mom of two girls Sadie and Ori. Jamie is the spiritual leader of the Adventure Rabbi Program. She received her ordination from Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion. She has served as a congregational rabbi in the U.S. and Canada, a street musician in Japan, a cook on a boat in Alaska helping with the Exxon Valdez oil spill clean-up, and an Outward Bound guide. She is the author of the Sadie series, the best-selling God in the Wilderness (Doubleday) and The God Upgrade (Jewish Lights). She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Let's get to know author Jamie Korngold:



Jamie appears as a character in Sadie and the Big Mountain

What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish pictures by Fritz Siebel

What’s your favorite line from a book?
“The night is keen and cold.”  – Lauren Thompson Polar Bear Night

Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
Amy Hest (the Friday Night’s of Nana)
Jane Dyer
Dr. Seuss

Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I love to tell stories!

Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
Read and listen to lots and lots of books. Notice the words that make up the story. Words are so much fun. I love of words. When you discover a word that is fun to say (for example I love to say, “bumble bee and pumpernickel”) make up a story using those words. The secret ingredient for making a fabulous book is to use words that paint pictures in the reader’s mind. The order of the words is also important, but getting the right words is the key!

This is my favorite word game. Invite your family or friends to pick the characters or objects to put in your story.  For example, yesterday my daughters asked for a story with, princesses, a warthog, and pumpernickel bagels.  Then you get to make up a story using those words.

Where did you get the inspiration for your latest or upcoming Kar-Ben book?
Sadie’s Almost Marvelous Menorah is a true story, except it happened to me and the menorah was light blue. I was about 5-years old. I can still remember how broken hearted I was when I dropped the menorah and it shattered. My mom was ingenious for coming up with the idea of Super Shammus.  What a great mom. We still have Super Shammus!

What are you most excited about promoting in your new book?
I admire how the mother takes a child’s perceived catastrophe and turns it into a celebration.  There is a lot of great parenting in that moment!

The theme of all my children’s books is that we have to make Judaism our own for it make our lives more meaningful.

How do you hope your book will impact the Jewish life of a child?
I hope this book reminds  kids that there is always  a place at the Jewish table for them. In this story the broken menorah gets to be the star. You don’t have to be perfect to have a place at the Jewish table.

Sadie's Sukkah Breakfast...A Fun New Preschool Tradition?

Sadie's Sukkah Breakfast is the first book in Kar-Ben’s new “Sadie” series (the next one is due out this spring for Shavuot--Sadie and the Big Mountain). Waking up early in the morning on Sukkot, sister and brother Sadie and Ori decide to serve breakfast in the family sukkah. But when the table is set and the food is ready, they remember that a sukkah celebration needs guests. No one is awake, so who can they invite?

Sadie and Ori use their problem solving skills and ingenuity to decide who to invite into their sukkah—their beloved stuffed animals. The book can become the inspiration for a class “teddy bear picnic” in a class or school sukkah, which would also involve the class using their own problem solving skills and ingenuity to design, build and decorate a sukkah worthy of such a meal. Additionally, students can learn basic manners and etiquette and what it means to host others and to share. Eat cereal and challah rolls just like Sadie and Ori!

Learn more about Sadie's Sukkah Breakfast!