It’s hard to imagine Lag B’Omer without public gatherings, local bonfires or celebrations or big parades. Nonetheless, the greatest celebration of Lag B’Omer is that of Jewish unity and Ahavas Yisroel! While it looks different this year than on others, we are perhaps even more connected to one another, albeit through alternative means. It might feel a little unusual to make a celebration at home with just immediate family, but it can still be fun and meaningful. Here are some craft and activity ideas to enhance your day using materials you have easy access to in these difficult times.
Every year, my children look forward to bonfires, and “camp ins” (playing about camping at home or in our backyard. Public bonfires aren’t happening this year and not everyone lives in a location that is conducive to having one. Some families may not even have access to outdoor spaces or yards right now and that can be really challenging. So let’s get creative together and make a Family Lag b’Omer Camp-In at home!
Pitch Your Tent: Whether you have an actual tent, build a fort with chairs and couch cushions and blankets or just set some cozy blankets out on the floor, setting up camp is a great activity for kids of all ages. If you do have a yard and the weather permits, you might do this outdoors.
It is just as fun and cozy indoors, too!
Setting Up Camp:
Let’s Go Fishing! To create a camp like atmosphere, you might want to include some fun camping activities. If you have the ingredients, perhaps you’ll make some s’mores in the oven or microwave. Maybe you have the ability to grill at home or prepare some favorite BBQ foods indoors. You might set up a little fishing game indoors with some paper or felt fish shapes and add a paperclip “mouth.” Use a refrigerator magnet, string and some tape to attach it to a stick, dowel, or long cardboard tube to make a fishing pole and you can go fishing right from your living room!
If you’re in the mood to add some waterplay to the mix, you can go fishing in a big bin or bowl of water. You can use what you have on hand. We had a fishing game party favor one year that we used but another year I just set out some bath toys, a colander and some sandbox toys to fish with! If you want to cool off with some ice play, you can make ice cube “fish” in an ice cube tray using colored water. Toss in a couple of googly eyes if you have them, but no need if you don’t. When your water is frozen, pop them out and add them to a bin of water. We did this with waterbeads one year, but those are not a requirement to make this enjoyable. If you have salad tongs, they make great “ice fishing poles,” but a ladle or slotted spoon would also work well!
Remember--children have inherently great imaginations! They can stretch them as wide as need be--just about anything can be a fish and just about anything can be used to catch it.
Build a Bonfire! While a real bonfire may not be feasible in your space, a pretend one can be great fun to think up and build. Perhaps you’ll go outdoors to gather real sticks or perhaps you’ll work from indoors and use blocks or recycled cardboard tubes. Your flames can be made from scarves/tichels, fire colored clothing and linens, crumpled tissue or construction paper. When it comes to project planning these days, it can be helpful to put your kids in the driver’s seat. Let them navigate what materials to use and how to set them up!
Gather Together and CELEBRATE: Next it’s time to cozy up together and celebrate by the “fire.” Sing or listen to some favorite songs. Dance in your living room! Parade around your house or if safely possible, around your neighborhood. Does anyone in your house play an instrument? If you don’t have “real” instruments” at home, maybe you’d like to make some of your own. If my kids have taught me anything, it’s that everything can be a drum! Share some favorite stories together or share some favorite things about each other. Ahavas Yisroel starts at home and this year, we can really celebrate that!
Feeling Crafty?
If you want to get crafty this year, here are some ideas. Use what you have handy! This year we plan to do a family mural using large paper and art supplies. This is a great way to work together with one another (an important theme of Lag B’Omer) and create something beautiful. We will hang it in our front window to bring joy to our neighbors passing by. You can do this with smaller paper as well. Family members can work together or create individual pieces of art to contribute to your window museum. You might add a message of kindness and encouragement.
For some theme related art, you might want to build a tiny bonfire craft. One year we did this with an overturned plastic cup, squares of colored paper, a paper plate and construction paper “sticks.” I used an LED light inside the cup, but this is not a requirement to make it fun! You can even make a marshmallow roasting stick prop using an actual stick, popsicle stick or wooden dowel and gluing a cotton ball marshmallow to one end.
You can also gather twigs outdoors and glue them onto a paper plate or piece of paper and add some crumpled tissue paper or construction paper flames. If you’d like a moveable miniature bonfire rather than a permanent craft, you can use the same materials but leave out the glue! This can be a great addition to a dollhouse or block building for little toys and figurines to celebrate together.
Marshmallows are fun for eating if you have them. They are also fun for painting with. You can use vanilla pudding or yogurt colored red, yellow and/or orange with food coloring to make edible paint. You can also do this with real paint (but make sure your littlest ones won’t eat it!) or substitute in a cotton ball for the “marshmallow.”
This year is different but we can still make Lag B’Omer feel special! It just may be the perfect recipe for a meaningful and memorable experience.
It’s almost Shavuot and this year we have to get a little bit creative to make it just as sweet at home as it is in shul. For some families, this may mean we gather our flowers from the backyard instead of the florist. We might be making our delicious, sweet dairy foods at home instead of buying them from the store. These activities are great ones for the kids to join in on! Here are some other ways you can play, create and explore with your kids before Shavuot using what you have access to from home.
Here are some ideas of materials you might use:
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You can use washable markers to color on a white coffee filter. Spray with water or moisten with a wet sponge to make the colors bleed. Twist your colorful paper into a flower shape and secure with a pipe cleaner stem or floral craft stem or just a simple piece of scotch tape if you don’t have those on hand. A stem can then be made from cut paper or a popsicle stick and the flower glued on or taped on.
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You can make flowers in the same way using tissue paper, colored paper/construction paper, wrapping paper, tinfoil colored on with paint or permanent markers, recycled art cut up and made into flower shaped collages, muffin liners, even scraps of fabric! In fact, you might even put the kids in charge of finding and deciding what to use. The recycling bin is a great place to look!
Petal Play! Playing with and about flowers is a great activity for young children before Shavuot. It is also a time of year that naturally lends itself to this in many locations. If you do have access to real flowers, you might allow the children to pick some and bring indoors. Perhaps they will try their hands at floral arranging and place them in a glass of water or vase to decorate your table. Or maybe they might like a chance to dissect a flower and see the different parts. Dandelions are a great pick for this activity!
If you do have access to wildflowers, weeds, leaves, or other fresh flowers, flower petal pounding is a really cool activity to do with kids. You’ll need a collection of petals and leaves in whatever colors you can find. You’ll also need a hammer or mallet. If you have a toy hammer that can be used, it’s a bit safer for little ones. If you do not, an adult or older child can help with a real hammer. You’ll also need some white paper or fabric. Place your petals and leaves on a hard and flat surface. You’ll want it to be a protected surface, so set out a placemat or other covering over your area if you’re indoors. Place your white paper or fabric on top of your petals and leaves once they are arranged as you like them and pound away! You’ll see vibrant and beautiful colors from nature coming through! Hashem really makes such a beautiful world around us. Your finished work can be hung and displayed or turned into a card or keepsake. One year we displayed our fabric in an old embroidery hoop and they’ve been hanging in one of our bathrooms ever since.
Small flowers, leaves and petals can also be dried for use in crafts and collage. You don’t need a fancy flower press for this either. Some paper towels placed over and under your foliage placed between the pages of a big, heavy book works great! Dictionaries are a great candidate for this project. Once they are dried, you can use them with some thinned out glue to make a flower collage or decorative paper for greeting cards or bookmarks. You can preserve them in clear contact paper or clear packing tape to create a nature suncatcher and hang them in your window or door frame.
Sensory play with flowers is also a great activity. You can do this in a variety of ways. You can use real flowers and water. You can leave it at that and stir up some great petal potions using long stems for spoons and cups, containers and dishes from around the house that can be used for play. If you have food coloring, you can color your water. You can add glitter if you’re feeling really brave, but this is certainly not an essential ingredient for fun.
You can create a flower themed sensory bin using dried beans, garden tools/toys, recycled containers and artificial flowers or flowers you’ve crafted at home.
Indoors, sensory play can sometimes get a little messy and this often deters us from wanting to try it. If mess causes stress, there are some tricks of the trade. Covering the space below with a towel, tarp, blanket or tablecloth can help contain it. Enlisting your kids to clean up their own spills by providing a dust pan and dust brush or towels for waterplay can also lessen the burden on the adults. Backyards are a great space for messy play but many families don’t have a space like that or cannot safely access outdoor spaces right now. The bathtub or kitchen sink can be a good location for messier activities or waterplay.
Playdough, clay or floral foam also make a good material for “planting” flowers whether they are artificial flowers or flowers crafted at home.
We have used playdough or clay in the past to build a beautiful Har Sinai! This is a fun activity for little ones and you can use whatever small loose parts or craft supplies you have to make your mountain beautiful. Small silk flowers, rocks, glass gems, beads, buttons, sequins, beads or small toys are all ideas of materials that may be used. If you want to make your own playdough at home, I like this recipe:
https://www.cooks.com/recipe/qp9aj114/stove-top-playdough.html
If you do have an outdoor space and access to sand or mud, children might even enjoy building and decorating an outdoor Har Sinai using natural materials!
Small world play about the story of Shavuot is great fun! Use small toys and figurines at home. Craft up some props using what you have and retell the story in miniature scale! We did this one year in our sensory bin using kinetic sand, but you can do this with toys, Legos, on your tabletop, on a shelf, with stuffed animals--use your imagination and get creative! Storytelling is a great way to make the concepts of our holidays meaningful to our children and engaging them in playing about it in a hands-on way really reinforces their learning and experience of it.
Don’t Forget the Ice Cream! This is admittedly one of our favorite parts of the holiday here, particularly for the younger set. You can play and create about this favorite Shavuot food using materials you have at home.
Make your own “ice cream puffy paint” using a generous blob of shaving cream and a generous squirt of school glue. Mix together and add some color with food coloring or paint to get to your favorite flavor shade. You’ll want a thick consistency. You can cut out an ice cream cone from paper and glue it to a larger sheet if you like. Then your kids will have great fun painting and drizzling their “ice cream” paint and if you want to add some sprinkles you can use real ones, beads, sequins, gems or glitter. These paintings can take a few days to dry completely if they are particularly thick in spots.
Ice cream sensory play is also a lot of fun. Use some of that shaving cream from before in the bathtub, kitchen sink or outdoors and set up an ice cream shop. You can use plastic spoons or ice cream scoops, recycled containers or plastic cups. You can add color with paint or food coloring. Make some messy ice cream fun! Lather, rinse and repeat!
You can also make a (less messy) ice cream sensory bin using pompoms or cotton balls for ice cream. You can make your own ice cream cones with recycled cardboard tubes and use real scoops or salad tongs and recycled containers or plastic cups.
Make a Hands-on Torah Craft: This is literally a hands-on way to make a meaningful and cute keepsake with your little ones. Draw or print out a Torah shape on paper. Have your youngest hands dip into some washable ink or paint. You can also trace hands if you prefer. One year, my eldest decided he wanted to use only his fingertips and that’s OK, too! A couple of handprints will get you right up to ten little fingers for ten very important commandments! You can write or print out a version of the Aseret Hadibrot to glue or tape on to your craft. This is a cute and meaningful way to introduce young ones to the idea that the Torah and all of the very special things inside of it was placed into our hands on Shavuot.
Although this year is surely different, I wish you all a sweet and special Shavuot. May we reach this day with good health, safety and renewed connection to Hashem and our beautiful Torah. From our home to yours, Chag Sameach!