Purim Carnival

And so the big day finally arrived yesterday - our LAFTY Purim Carnival. As it happens, yesterday was the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, a/k/a Purim Day. The sun was shining, and colorful costumes and booths could be seen everywhere - in the Social Hall as well as outdoors on the lawn. This was my 15th Purim Carnival at Isaiah, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I think this was definitely one of the very best!

We began the day in our classroom. I read two chapters from "The Circlemaker," and then we played "In the Manner of the Word," a game we've played in class before. We came up with 9 action sentences relating to the Purim story which I wrote on the white board (a great review for our Purim unit of study), and then brainstormed 13 adverbs to write next to the sentences. One student went out of the room for each round of play, and another student pointed to the "word" (the adverb) that would have to be acted out for that round. We then let the student who went out of the room back inside, and that student had to try to figure out which "word" had been chosen by having volunteers act out one or more of the sentences. This is the perfect game to play if you want to get into a hilarious and crazy mood - which we wanted to do just before going to the Purim Carnival festivities.

Here's Michael choosing "stupidly," and below is a video of Joey acting out "Esther wins over King A.'s heart" "in the manner of the word" - in this case, "stupidly." (It was Callen who went outside and now had to figure out which word was chosen.)

Now it was Callen's turn to choose the "word," and he chose "evily" (we made some words up!).

And Jeremy is choosing "weirdly." Below is Michael acting out "King A. commands all single girls in his kingdom to participate in a beauty contest" in the "manner of the word" - in this case, "weirdly."

Then it was time for us to go up to the Sanctuary to join the other classes and parents and siblings for the 2017 Purim Carnival.

We were greeted by "Jester" Bill as we entered the Sanctuary.

Once most of the people had found their families and taken their seats, we began to sing Purim songs, led by Rabbi Greninger and Cantor Korn. The lyrics were on the big screen, so everyone joined in.

And when we had all gotten into the Purim mood singing Purim songs and making a lot of noise with the graggers, it was time for the "Frozen" Purim shpiel (play) to begin. Below is a taste of how it began.

The shpiel, performed by teachers and clergy, was a very big hit, and there was still much more to come. It was followed by two parades - the first was made up of younger children, all decked out in costumes:

And the second parade was made up of older children, also decked out in costumes. At the end of each parade, the children gathered up on the bima.

The younger group and...

...the older one.

Finally, it was time for everyone to go to the Social Hall, where they could stand in line to buy tickets for the food and games, and enjoy a really fun carnival.

One of the first booths you might come across was the food booth. There, you could use your tickets to buy hamantashen, cotton candy, pizza, chips, dried fruit snacks, popcorn and/or cold drinks.

There was a slight problem figuring out how to get the popcorn machine to start, but it was soon figured out! (That's Max, our Edot Sunday morning T.A. discussing the problem with Maimone, our Y'tzira teacher.)

And if you've never seen cotton candy being made, here's a bit of a "behind-the-scenes" peek (I'm not sure if there was more cotton candy on the cone or on her arm!).

The lines quickly formed at all the booths. Here's the line for the "Fishin' " game.

You could try your hand at "Pin the Hamantaschen on Haman" game...

...or get your face painted...

...and even your arm!

Outdoors you could try your hand at sponge or ring toss games...

...or get a chance to dunk Ian in a tank of VERY cold water! Below is a clip of Ian waiting for someone to hit the bulls-eye mark and send him plummeting into the tank!

For the young crowd, you could see if you could jump high enough to hit the ceiling in the Jump House.

Back inside, there was a silent auction offering baked goods, art, and services offered by the 7th graders to raise money for their trips and other activities...

...and you might not recognize him, but here's our own Michael in disguise as a Star Wars trooper, standing in front of the "Adopt-A-Book" booth. Here, families could choose a book to "adopt," raising money for our library.

There were also fun contests - here's the hoola hoop contest...

...and here's the cake walk contest (and our own Gabby set to start walking as soon as the music begins).

Once you had played a few games and won a bunch of prize tickets, you could mosey over to the prize table to pick out your "loot."

With so much to do, it was no wonder that some of us felt a need to find a quiet corner every now and then for a well-deserved break (Bill and Erica taking five here).

Some chose to enjoy some delicious pizza at the tables set up in the room.

And, of course, it was nice to see everyone enjoying themselves and shmoozing. If you looked carefully, you could find our teachers doing just that:

Jacob, our Kindergarten teacher and Sarah, our 2nd grade teacher...

...Siena, our Special Needs Aide and Yardena, our Hebrew Through Movement teacher...

Our Bonim teacher, Tamar, and first grade teacher Alicia...

Daniella, our Administrative Assistant for Youth and Education and Maimone, our Y'tzira teacher...

...and here's Heather, our Omanut teacher...

...and Yardena again with Tammy, our second Hebrew Through Movement teacher.

Here's Melissa, our Librarian, with a volunteer at the "Adopt-A-Book" booth.

I found our cooking teacher, Stephanie, working at the food booth with Rabbi Shanks...

...and caught up with Rabbi Miller conversing with some of our younger congregants outside.

Back inside, I found Jojo, our Teva teacher, connecting with a possible future Teva student.

And if you looked carefully, you might even have seen a Queen Esther running around with her very lo-tech digital camera which ran out of battery just after this photo was taken of her sans camera.

And so my 15th LAFTY Purim Carnival came quickly to an end. For the first time that I can recall, there were still lots of people at the Carnival at its official ending time of 12:30, and I think the only thing that finally got them back out into the real world was the fact that we ran out of cotton candy.

YASHER KO'ACH to all the LAFTY members who worked so hard to prepare for the Carnival, ran all the booths and cleaned up at the end. Your efforts were not in vain!  

Now that Purim is behind us, we have only four weeks to prepare for Pesach (Passover). And before the holiday arrives, we'll have learned all about the 15 steps of the Pesach Seder, how to chant the "Mah Neeshtana" and a lot of Hebrew Through Movement vocabulary relating to Pesach. 

But first, buckle up your seat belts, because we're about to travel a great distance from the European continent of the Ashkenazeem to the Indian subcontinent, where we'll stop long enough to learn about the history and culture of the Bene Israel Jews - or, as they were called by their non-Jewish neighbors, "The Shanwar Teli" ("The Oil Pressers").