Playing about Purim: Part 1

Purim is an inherently fun holiday to learn and play about! The excitement is building in our house as we sing songs, read books and play about Purim. Here's a peek at some of our favorite activities so far:




We've been busy making and hanging decorations, creating themed self-portraits, exploring math, science, building/engineering and more!

My little artist has had a lot of fun using the materials from his art center to create Purim themed decorations for our home. He's so proud to see them hanging up!

Royal Self Portraits
Dressing up in costume is a huge part of the Purim fun. The story itself has a theme of Kings, Queens and royalty, so we played on that theme a bit for this Invitation to Create a Royal Self Portrait. I provided a template I put together on my computer. In addition, I set out chalk pastels, a mirror and a crown he could wear, some construction paper crown cutouts, as well as plenty of shiny sequins and rhinestones for gluing on. Some of our Table Time activities fit into the "once and done" category, but this is one he went back to again and again throughout the day as he added and modified his royal self portrait.

Incorporating Shapes, Letters and Numbers...

The Purim story is full of hidden miracles and overall sneakiness. It's one of the reasons we wear costumes and eat a cookie with a hidden treat in the center. With creative planning, you can sneak core concepts like learning shapes, letters and numbers into just about any theme and make it a lot of fun!
Chinuch.org is a great online resource run for and by Jewish educators. There are loads of free lesson plans, materials, multi-media activities and printables available for all age and grade levels as well as for special education. I found this Purim Counting Book there and adapted it into a busy binder that can be used again and again. As my son uses the movable laminated parts (each page and part is prepared with Velcro and stored in a sheet protector), he learns about popular symbols of Purim while simultaneously developing early math skills like one-to-one-correspondence.

I sneak in some learning about letters, too. This week, we learned about the letter Kk with a King-themed letter craft that also helped us remember one of the core Purim story characters, King Achashverosh.
The month of March blew in with gusty winds and warm weather. It was the perfect time to review some shapes and our letter of the week with this kite craft. This puzzle-collage allows the artist to see how 4 triangles make the shape of a diamond.

We sang this fun song about kites as we learned about the letter Kk and welcomed the month of March. We also tied the incoming month to our Purim theme by making some fun paper plate lion and lamb masks as I taught my son that "March goes in like a lion and out like a lamb." There was a lot of roaring and baaaaaing after that!

"Roooooar!"

Paper plate lion and lamb masks to welcome March!

This theme is not without its STEM-based learning and play opportunities. Our warm weather made for a perfect day to take our play activities outside for some castle building with woodblocks and chalkboard blocks, plenty of chalk doodling and an ice castle treasure excavation activity adapted from this great blog post.

Ice Castle Treasure Excavation
We became archaeologists in this fun science exploration. The night before, I filled a castle shaped bucket with water and some Purim/treasure themed loose parts I had around the house (like plastic necklaces, bracelets and rings, plastic coins and magic wands and plastic goblets all collected from the party supply section of the Dollar Tree a few years ago). I did not have the patience to layer water and trinkets and wait for it to nearly freeze before adding more water and trinkets and waiting for it freeze. Since some toys floated and others sank to the bottom, it worked perfectly to just fill the bucket nearly to the top, add some food coloring and glitter, stick it in our deep freezer and call it good!

When it was time to begin our activity, my husband ran the bucket under hot water to loosen our castle. We set up in our water table outside, but you could do so indoors as well in a large basin or even the tub. I provided toy hammers and some paint brushes, a squeeze bottle of warm water and a dish of kosher salt since we explored ways to melt ice more quickly in a science experiment earlier this year. He decided to add the rest of his tool kit! And he really went to town with this. He loved squirting the water, pinching and sprinkling (and eventually dumping) the salt and trying his hand at hammering, brushing...even sawing! A few suggestions now that we are done--you may want to use safety goggles if your little ones are particularly vigorous archaeologists. We definitely had some flying ice chunks. And secondly, stick to dollar store treasures as you may experience some casualties in the process! We had a great time with this and he's already asked to do it again soon.

That's all for now! Happy Playing!