Playing About Purim: Part 2

Whether you're hat has three corners

        Or you're a cat in a hat

                   Today's post is sure to have something about that!

A Blast from Purim Past

Dr. Suess's birthday fell on March 2nd, smack dab in the middle of our Purim unit. I love Dr. Seuss and I love watching my son grow to adore many of the books I adored as a child. We could spend a whole unit playing and learning about Dr. Seuss and that might be why I initially did not plan to do anything specifically for his birthday--now a day when reading events are celebrated nationwide to encourage childhood literacy in honor of the author's memory. The Purim story is full of exciting characters with strong emotions and even some funny hats, so when I really got down to it, an afternoon spent honoring one of our favorite children's authors would not really be off topic at all!


Emotions and feelings are one theme that I like to incorporate with Purim. Learning the language the describe emotions along with the physical and facial cues to recognize them are such an important part of social development. Learning how to identify and self-regulate emotions is a vital part of development as well. Many of these lessons are taught and learned "in the moment" as we go through our day. Sometimes, it's helpful to explore strong emotions not "in the moment," as well. One of my favorite Dr. Seuss books is My Many Colored Days. Seeing as I decided to add this sub-theme in at the very last minute, I was not at all surprised to see every copy already checked out of all the libraries in our county! No worry, I just did a quick YouTube search and found this beautiful video adaptation of the book:

I love the feel of a book in my hands, don't get me wrong. It's also nice, however to introduce literacy with a multi-media approach. In this day and age, there are great ways to experience a plethora of literature via audio-book or video. We love audio books for long (and even not-so-long) car trips as well as for quiet times at home. If you have a hard copy for those little hands to hold as they listen along, even better! YouTube is one great resource for video versions of a huge variety of children's literature and Scholastic (among other companies) produces a great variety of videos with children's books being read that are often available at your local library. 

access to paint and water often makes my little guy "very happy!"

I was inspired by this blog post on extension activities with the book My Many Colored Days to create a simple template for my son to artistically demonstrate his own feelings at the time. We used watercolor paints (in conjunction with the watercolor illustrations by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher) and talked as he painted about the different colors he was using and feelings they remind us of. He (like so many toddlers) chose to use many colors! I think it is a beautifully accurate description of the fact that toddler (and human) emotions come and go many times in a day, sometimes in pairs or small groups, sometimes solo. Our work with our young ones is to create a space that is safe in which to experience this plethora of colors and emotions as well as to process them. Providing language to describe feelings, tools to manage them and creative outlets to express them is a huge part of that process. 

After we were done painting, he naturally gravitated toward some of his favorite Dr. Seuss books for some reading on Mommy's lap! He is especially fond of Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? and that one got a lot of air time before he requested The Cat in the Hat in Yiddish! While we were on the topic of silly hats, we remembered a certain Purim story character whose hat was notoriously triangular in shape: Haman! 

We don't like to spend a lot of time focusing on the not-so-nice Haman, but we do like to spend a lot of time focusing on the delicious cookie made in the very same shape as his hat: hamentashen. We had a lot of fun reading The Better Than Best Purim by Naomi Howland a few nights ago and making our own hamentashen dough to chill overnight. I happen to be sensitive to wheat/gluten so we use spelt flour for our homemade hamentashen in a recipe I adapted from several of my favorites. Just as we were about to begin, I realized we were out of margarine! My very helpful husband offered to run to the store and I quickly detoured my soon-to-be-extremely-distraught-son to our computer to see a short video of hamentashen being baked in a kosher bakery. I expected it to dissolve the pending meltdown, but little did I know it would become a new favorite. He's requested to see it repeatedly since then! And the margarine showed up just in time to prepare our dough before bed. My little baker was very excited to shape and bake them the next afternoon.

Our Hamentashen Bakery

I will openly admit that while I love eating hamentashen, when it comes to making them, I'm always looking to cut a few corners (pun intended). This year, rather than roll out all my dough and cut circles with a glass or cookie cutter, I rolled my dough in logs before chilling and tried the ol' slice and bake method. I also found that while I can dream and imagine about the beautiful postcard image of my 2.5 year old son helping me fill, shape and bake dozens of these delicious cookies, it is way more practical to set out a small portion for him to help with and have the rest ready to go Martha-Stewart-Miracles-Of-Television style. That is just what we did! I set out half a dozen circles (that I actually did roll and cut with him to see) and our fillings of choice. He loved scooping jelly in the center. He loved eating chocolate chips. He even loved putting some chocolate chips in the cookies. He did not necessarily love the actual hamentashen, but my husband and I are enjoying them nonetheless and my son is still thrilled to have had a hand in making them.

This is either a really great busy book activity for Purim or the perfect mommy-hack for those kids
who NEVER keep a costume on for longer than 36 seconds! 

There's definitely more fun to be had and preparations in store as we count down the days until Purim. Hope you'll join us next week for some more fun and learning and until then...

Happy Playing!