Have a dairy treat (cheese/blintzes); ‘receive’ a class Torah of kind rules.
Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.
- Why is learning important?
- Why do we need rules for how we treat each other?
Shavuot celebrates receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. People study (some all night!), eat dairy foods, and celebrate the gift of learning and the Ten Commandments.
- Shavuot — Feast of Weeks
- Torah — our teachings
- Aseret HaDibrot — Ten Commandments
- “Why dairy?”
- To celebrate the land ‘flowing with milk and honey,’ and it’s a sweet, gentle food for a sweet holiday.
- Children know Shavuot celebrates receiving the Torah at Sinai.
- Children connect to the joy of learning and kind rules.
Frame ‘rules’ as caring agreements the class makes together, giving every child a voice.
Folktale. The Mountain That Was Chosen (Midrash) — little, humble Mount Sinai is chosen for the Torah over the tall, proud mountains.
Changemaker. Rabbi Akiva — a shepherd who could not read at all until he was forty, and became one of the greatest teachers our people has ever had.
I wonder what I would most love to learn?
“We finished our My Jewish Year book! Ask your child to read it to you — it’s the first piece of their lifelong portfolio.”