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.
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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.”
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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.
An important topic, not only to parents of elementary students but to middle school and high school parents as well, is a question that lies at the foundation of student success. That question is, “How do you get your child to appreciate the importance of education?” I think most would agree that the answer to this very important questions starts at a very early age when parents teach their children that education has an important value or merit throughout one’s life. The word, “value” has different meanings. The first is that education is held in high esteem in the value system that parents teach their children. Parents teach their kids to be honest, kind, truthful, have a good self-esteem, have courage (doing what’s right when everyone around you is doing wrong), and, of course, the importance of education. Through education, we learn to think logically, make decisions that help us be better citizens in our community, give us a guide as to what professional path we might want to follow, and the list goes on and on.
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The second meaning for “value” is more quantitative monetarily Most would agree that by getting a good education will help someone get a job, usually in a desired profession, that will help to support his or her family at a desired income level. A recent study from Georgetown University showed that on average, a college graduate will make $1,000,000 more over a lifetime that a high school graduate. Another study, by Pew Research Center, found that the yearly median income gap between college graduates and high school graduates is about $17,500.
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So, the question is, how and at what age do we, as parents, begin teaching our kids the importance and value of education? In my opinion, the answer is, as early as possible. It can start in many different ways. For example, it is very easy to introduce very young children, starting at one or two months to appreciate music. At special times during the day, play Mozart, Bach, Handel, and other composers. At one or two years, continue with the music, but add reading appropriate level books at regular times. I am not a psychologist, but if you read to kids before bedtime or play soft music, it can make the I don’t want to go to bed syndrome much easier! It certainly worked for our two kids. As they get older, expose them to more complex subjects such as science, math, and history. There are many math games that can be found on the internet. There are books that a parent can buy that have different science experiments which can be done at home with materials most home kitchens have. The library has books that explain the importance of our history, as well as , history in general.
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I think the trick to teaching children the importance of learning and education is to be consistent and continue doing those things that that you’ve started right on through elementary and middle school. Your child has a far better chance of being successful in school if you are consistent in your expectations for degrees of success. For example, my father was not consistent in his expectations of me throughout high school. As a result, I didn’t have high expectations for myself in school. The result was mediocrity. After I had gotten out of the Navy, and my educational expectations were far, far higher, did I finally meet those expectations.
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In closing, our responsibility as parents to make sure that we teach our kids to appreciate the importance of education is to start that process at a very young age and continue that process as they get older. Talk to them about education’s social and economic importance, introduce, read, and expose them to many different topics of interest. This is the job we as parents have that will pay off many times in our children’s lives.