Purim Carnival

Yesterday morning was a cold one! (My car thermometer read 36 degrees when I arrived at the Isaiah campus around 8 a.m.!) But it was sunny, and the workmen were already setting up the dunk tank and jump house on the lawn outside of the Sanctuary, and the Social Hall was filled with young people setting up the Carnival booths. This was to be my 17th  Purim Carnival at Isaiah, and it proved to be one of the very best!

We started the morning in our Edot classroom. Only 4 boys came to class, but together with my two wonderful Sunday TA's, Kyra and Ella, we were able to establish the proper mood - HAPPY AND CRAZY - for the day! We did so by playing a game called "In the Manner of the Word."

To prepare to play the game, the students contributed 8 complete sentences, each of which described a part of the Purim story. Then they each came up with several adverbs - the sillier the better!

Then it was time to play the game. A volunteer went out of the room, while another student watched the door to be sure the first volunteer couldn't see anything in the classroom. Then another volunteer chose one of the adverbs.  Once we allowed the first volunteer to re-enter the classroom, he was asked to choose a volunteer to come to our "staging area" who would act out (no words or any sounds allowed!) one of the sentences on the board "in the manner of the word" (the word being the adverb that was chosen for that round). Below is an example, showing David acting out "Esther won King Achashverosh's beauty contest STUPIDLY."

By the time we finished playing the game, we had added on some more silly adverbs to the list, and were most definitely in the mood for a WILD AND CRAZY Purim celebration. We joined the rest of the school and the parents up in the Sanctuary, where the day's events began with a Purimshpiel acted out by the teachers. Talk about CRAZY...!

Below, Narrator 2 (that's me!) is introducing King Achashvershmosh (Maimone, our Y'tzira teacher), describing his crazy behavior at his party at the start of the story:

We even included audience members to be contestants in King A's beauty contest!

And here's the winner of the beauty contest, Esther, sharing with King A. that she's a Jew, too!

And once the shpiel was over, we had two costume parades - one for the younger children ...

... and the other for our 3rd-6th graders.

Then it was time for the main event - the PURIM CARNIVAL.

Even before parents and children filed into the Social Hall, several teachers, clergy and staff had quietly left the Sanctuary to take their places at the ticket booths ... (recognize Queen Esther from the Purimshpiel? And who's that pineapple standing next to her? Could it be Daniella?!!!)

 Where a very, very long line of excited children and their parents were waiting for their turn to buy tickets to the Carnival ...

... and at the food booth, where you could buy a slice of pizza from Rabbi Shanks ...

... popcorn from a giraffe ...

... and hamantaschen from someone dressed up to look like Meghan!

You could even buy cotton candy (hopefully as much got on the cone as in our cotton candy maker's hair!).

In fact, the cotton candy line was never very short during the Carnival.

As soon as I entered the Social Hall, this huge sign caught my attention.

And within minutes, children had gathered on the floor space in front of the stage for a hoola hoop contest:

As I turned to explore other booths and games, I caught sight of the prize table - not a soul around it at the start of the Carnival ...

... but very soon to be overrun by children looking to exchange their prize tickets for as many prizes as possible!

Since I'm an English and Reading teacher by training, one of my first stops is always the Library booth, where I can check out our Library's latest acquisitions ...

... and carefully consider which book(s) I'd like to "adopt." By the way, if you didn't get a chance to adopt one or more books at the Carnival, just visit Melissa in the Library to do so. It's never too late!

There were so many game booths to choose from:

An "oldie but goodie" booth was the "Guess the Number Jar."

You could also play mini-golf ...

... which apparently even dragons like to play! (Don't worry - he's very friendly!)

You could try out your fishing skills ...

... or learn what the future holds for you from our resident fortune tellers (angels and humans are welcome!).

So many booths, so little juice left in my camera battery!  You could also visit the "Bowling," "Pin the Hamantaschen on Haman," "Horse Shoe Toss," "Tic-Tac-Toe," "Ring Toss," and "Tin Can Alley" booths.

Some of the above-named booths were outdoors, where people were gathered all over the lawn and cement patio outside of the Sanctuary and Social Hall.  There were children jumping happily in the Jump House:

And brave Ian, our Youth Director, was willing to brave the cold water and cold air to risk getting dunked in the Dunk Tank!

Getting some encouragement from a student ...

Yeah, that water is REALLY COLD! (Getting encouragement from Melissa, our first grade teacher.)

OK - much better. He's getting used to the water. Good thing, too. Our student is ready, ball in hand, to get Ian back in the water!

Back indoors, there was also a silent auction, where you could bid for prizes offered by our 7th graders. What a terrific way to help raise funds for the 7th grade and LAFTY events!

As I wandered in and out of the Social Hall, I caught sight (and snapped photos) of teachers I ran into:

Here's our "Supergirl" Omanut teacher, Heather.

And here's Tamar, our Bonim teacher, with her daughter.

Here's Melissa, our first grade teacher, again, schmoozing with Jerri, our Special Needs Director and Yardena, our Hebrew Through Movement specialist. In the background, you can see Gabby, our kindergarten teacher, wearing her cowboy hat.

Kyra is definitely enjoying the Carnival!

And Ben, our Music Director, is striking a very happy banana pose at his ticket selling station.

And our Education Director of Crayons (excuse me, of JQuest), Rabbi Greninger is in deep conversation (as she was all through the Carnival)! (Her excellent directing abilities extended to directing our teacher Purimshpiel!)

YASHER KO'ACH to Ian for organizing and supervising the Purim Carnival, and to all his helpers for helping make this Carnival so much fun (with lots of CRAZY thrown in!).  Purim begins this
coming Wednesday evening, with a reading from Megillat Ester (The Scroll of Esther).

CHAG PURIM SAME'ACH! HAPPY PURIM HOLIDAY!

Hamantaschen and the Shekel Game

 A little over a week ago, Ben, our music director, taught us a Purim song called "Mee'she'neechnas Adar" (see 2/8 post), which lyrics are translated to mean "Whoever enters the month of Adar is filled with much happiness." Since we were just about to enter the month of Adar (today and tomorrow we celebrate "Rosh Chodesh" Adar), I decided to take the song literally and make sure that by the end of each day my students would be filled with "much happiness." We began each session upstairs in the Oneg Room with Karen, our cooking teacher. 

Three guesses what was on the menu for this month's cooking session, and the first two guesses don't count!

As usual, we began by watching Karen go through all the steps of  the cooking directions, so she could share the best and easiest ways to accomplish the project.

Then all the students divided up so there were no more than 4 to a table, and immediately began to work the dough that Karen had prepared at home. 

At first, I was somewhat concerned. All my students were focusing so carefully on what they were doing, I couldn't get any photos of them "filled with much happiness" as the song goes.

Not only were they not "looking like they were filled with happiness," but they didn't even utter a sound as they shaped the dough!

Thankfully, the smiles began to appear once they developed a "feel" for how to roll the dough and form the dough circles into triangular shapes after filling them with strawberry preserves!

Which doesn't mean that they didn't go right back into "really focused" mode - just that I now realized they were enjoying the activity so much that they could completely focus on it!

And all the focus was rewarded with some very professional looking hamantaschen ready to go into the oven!

Once we had all washed off the flour dust, pieces of dough and strawberry jam that had clung to us during the cooking activity, the sixth graders went to the Sanctuary for tefillah with Cantor Korn and the seventh graders, while I took the fifth graders downstairs to the Beit Knesset for tefillah with Ben (Rabbi Greninger is in Israel this week with a group of Moms!). 

Following our half hour tefillah, we all met upstairs for hafsaka (recess) where a lot of "happiness" could be detected coming out of the Gaga pit and all around it. Then it was time to go to our Edot classroom for even more fun!

At the end of each of our Edot units of study, it's time to play "Meeschak Ha'sh'kaleem." (The Shekel Game) Here I am introducing the six categories of review questions, covering our recently completed unit of study about the Iraqi/Babylonian Jewish edah, as well as what we learned during the same time period in our Hebrew Through Movement sessions, in Jewish History in general, the holidays we observed (Hanuka through Tu Bish'vat), in our tefillah sessions (blessings and prayers), as well as what we read in "The Storyteller's Beads" (which we completed a few weeks ago), and "A Shout in the Sunshine" (which we began reading a few weeks ago). And I also include review questions about important aspects of what we've studied in all the categories from the start of the school year.

Just as we started to play, Karen came in with the hamantaschen the students had made (it only takes 6-8 minutes to bake them, and another 10 minutes or so to cool them down enough to package them for the students to take home - though as you can see in this photo, I don't think many hamantaschen lasted long enough to share at home!). You may also notice bags of the "Menena" pastries that we gave out at our family Chamsa workshop this past Sunday. Those students who couldn't attend brought their gift packages of menena home after the weekday session was over. 

I tell each group which category their question will come from, then they tell me how much they want to bet (never more than half the amount of money they have on the table when I ask the question!). 

Once I ask the question, they have 30 seconds to share what they know with each other, and then have the reporter tell me the answer they all agreed upon. And I can't repeat the question, so they have to listen carefully the first time I ask it.

They also have to keep track of how much they are betting, mostly to give themselves an idea of where they stand in relation to the competing group. Should they risk betting more to stay ahead or catch up, or be on the safe side if they're not 100% sure of the answer?

Some very serious decisions have to be made ...

... and only then can the reporter tell me the answer the group has agreed upon.

The treasurer is about to tell his group members if they have enough money to bet as much as they want to!

And when the game was done after the most difficult questions were asked in the final "All-or-Nothing" round, the victors were congratulated (no prizes - just the glory of knowing that by putting their heads together, they recalled the most important information that I had shared with them about our Jewish world in our Edot classroom! As a matter of fact, there was only one question that wasn't answered correctly in this game - and it was a trick question! ("What is the only nation in the world today that is older than the Jewish nation?" - Correct answer is "No other nation in the world today is older than our Jewish nation!")

Remember that there's no school this coming Sunday, or the following Tuesday and Wednesday, in honor of President's holiday. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at our next session back to JQuest on Sunday, February 25th, at which time the entire school will be celebrating Purim at our annual LAFTY PURIM CARNIVAL!!!

BE FILLED WITH HAPPINESS THIS MONTH OF ADAR, AND COME TO THE CARNIVAL PREPARED TO BE "CRAZY HAPPY" AS THE RABBIS COMMANDED!