LAFTY Purim Carnival

The weather report for the day of our Purim Carnival yesterday warned there might be showers in the morning and throughout the day. Indeed, some showers did appear, but not until after the better part of the Carnival was over. For most of the morning the sun shone - so brightly, in fact, that many participants swarmed outside to the lawn outside the Sanctuary, where the Jump House and Dunk Tank were set up.

We started the morning in our Edot classroom, where I greeted the students as a nutty professor. After reading a chapter out loud from the novel, "A Shout in the Sunshine" as more and more students began to gather, we played a "Purim Shekel Game" where the categories were devoted to each of the 5 major characters in the Purim story. 

In between mouthfuls of hamantashen and Goldfish crackers, students showed that they knew the details of the Purim story backwards and forwards, and could recognize which Jewish values were apparent in different parts of the story.

Occasionally, a question might result in some head scratching...

...but when heads came together, the answers were quickly determined...

...and the reporter in the group answered within the allotted 15 seconds (occasionally while still chomping away on a hamantashen)!

Our T.A., Brian, was kept very busy paying out the money won by each group - in fact, the bets grew larger and larger, so confident were the students that they could answer correctly!

By the time the game was over, we were all in the proper mood for the Carnival...

...and so we headed upstairs to the Sanctuary for the Purim assembly and costume parades.

Once we reached the Sanctuary and took our seats, we sang "Heenei Ma'tov" followed by several Purim songs.

Members of our LAFTY youth group performed a series of short skits.

And then, it was time for our costume parades. First, came the younger children:

And then came the older ones:

After the parades, Rabbi Greninger called all the teachers up to the bima, to show off our costumes. And then it was time for everyone to go into the Social Hall for the Carnival. This took some time as the two lines for buying Carnival tickets quickly grew in length!

Here are Matt and Daniel standing at the end of one of the lines.

Once inside the Social  Hall, there was so much to do and see - here's our Ninja Turtle T.A. Brian who was assigned to the Prize Booth - a very popular booth, indeed!

It was hard to keep track of all the Edot students with so many people at the Carnival, especially since many of them were very well-disguised! (It's Ariston inside the hammerhead shark outfit!)

Other times, it was much easier to spot one of ours - here's Charlotte looking like she's the last girl standing in the hoola hoop contest - GO CHARLOTTE!!!

And standing behind the big plate of hamantashen (can one ever have enough?!) are Joey and his Mom, Angie.

Cotton candy was definitely popular - here's Alex with friend Jackson and cousin Jacob (with his back showing).

And there's Ben with his Dad, Adam, waiting on line for the sponge toss game.

Kyra and friend Abi are enjoying the sunny day as they head to one of the outside booths. It was so warm that a lot of kids bought the shaved ice cups to keep cool!

Here's Aaron kicking a ball with his foot for as long as he can balance on the other foot. We've got talent in our class!

And as I kept going around the room and outside on the lawn searching out Edot students, I ran into a few colorful characters along the way!

I think it's safe to say that a good time was had by all at our 2016 LAFTY Purim Carnival. Yasher koach to Jory and our LAFTY teens for all the hard work and love they put into preparing a supercalifragilistic- expealidocious Carnival.

It left us all jumping for joy!!!