Shabbat is such an even in our class every week. You can feel Shabbat as soon as you walk into our classroom on Friday; children are helping make challah dough, set the Shabbat table in the dramatic play area, decorate their challah bags, Shabbat books are on display and of course our favorite Shabbat songs are playing in the background, ...
"Morah, it's Shabbat today!!??" I often hear as children come in through the door.
So what could we do during the Shabbat Unit to bring even more Shabbat excitement and tradition to our classroom? Well, first and foremost, the fact that we will have a huge Shabbat dinner together with all our Zimmer Preschool friends, parents and teachers was hugely exciting for the children to find out. We normally have a nice, small Shabbat party in our class and although we all enjoy it every week, talking about everyone getting together in our community room to share delicious food and each other's company was so exciting...
"So how can we tell everyone in school to come to the Shabbat dinner?"
Here are some ways the children brainstormed:
"We can tell everyone!" "We can call them!" "We can send them a note!" "We can make a sign."
Those were all great ideas so we talked and thought about each one for a moment.
If we choose to tell people about the party that would mean we would have to see everyone to tell them. Are we going see every person before the party to tell them to come to our awesome Shabbat party?
Children: "No" "We don't know where they live."
"If we choose to call everyone to tell them to come to the Shabbat party that means we would need their phone numbers. Do we have every one's phone number?"
Children: "No"
"What about a note? What's that note called...when you want to have a party and you want to tell people to come...You can send them a note that says "Please Come to My Party" What do we call that note? Maybe you sent out a note like that when you had a Birthday Party? (no one knew...)
It's called an invitation."
We practiced saying the word "Invitation". It wasn't easy :) and then we made invitation to take home to our families to ask them to come to our awesome Shabbat Dinner Party.
Naturally, such a huge event also deserves an equally huge sign along with individual invitations because we wanted to make sure that everyone knew about our Shabbat Party.
We also reviewed all the things that make Shabbat so special, like challah, candles, grape juice, Kiddush cup and of course fancy clothes.
We had fun playing the Shabbat Matching Game.
To find out more about Shabbat we needed some informational text, so naturally we turned to our favorite Shabbat book "Is It Shabbat Yet?" In this book a little girl named Malkie helps her mom get everything ready for Shabbat. We carefully studied this text cover to cover :)
Then we got to work... First thing we had to do is clean our classroom. So we vacuumed just like Malkie in the book.
We also swept to make sure our classroom was extra spiffy :)
The following day Morah said she had something really exciting in the box. What could it be?! We just couldn't wait to find out.
Morah had a cash register and play food in the box and she set up a small shop. We talked about and shared our shopping experiences and routines. It was a very interesting subject and everyone had much to share. We also tied in Tzedaka into this topic since we all need money to buy food and there are some people who don't have enough money to buy the food they need. It was a great reminder of how we can give Tzedaka and help people who need money.
Then we each took turns being the customer while Morah was the shop keeper.
It was so much fun playing store that we decided to take it to the next level. We set up a bigger story on our stage with all the things that you need for Shabbat.
We all had a turn to be the customer and the shop keeper.
We chose what we wanted to buy, put it in the shopping basket and brought it to the register.
Then the shop keeper put our things in a paper bag so we could take them home.
We also remembered to pay for what we bought (we used real money from our Tzedaka bags :)
and the shop keepers were so polite and always said "Thank You, Have a Nice Day!"
We loved playing store so much that we set it up and played everyday that week.
Once we had everything we needed for our Shabbat dinner we got to work and began cooking. Naturally we started with the chicken soup.
We took turns cutting up the vegetables and mixing in all the ingredients.
Next we made the challah.
While the challah was baking in the oven, we took turns mixing the soup on top of the stove.
Once the food was all ready it was time to set the table. The Shabbat table looked so fancy with the beautiful table cloth.
Then it was time for US to get ready for Shabbat dinner. We turned the "bear cove" in our classroom into a pretend shower and we even hung a shower curtain. 
We took turns pretending to take a shower. It was so much fun!
Finally, it was time for Shabbat. We put on fancy clothes from our dress-up closet and sat down together for our Shabbat meal.
We had so much fun going through the steps of getting ready for Shabbat as Malkie did in the book. It was great to bring our favorite book to life so we took it even a step further and that Friday we made REAL Shabbat soup for our classroom Shabbat Party.
We used plastic knives to cut up carrots, potatoes and celery. Then we put it all in a big crock pot full of broth and added some alphabet pasta and spices.
The soup was delicious and it really enriched our Shabbat experience so much more that week.
The following week we began our preparations for the BIG Shabbat Party with all our family and friends in the community room. We decided to make candle holder for all the tables in the community to look beautiful and ready for Shabbat.
We each worked one-on-one with Morah to glue on pretty gems to baby food jars.
Then together in class we used food coloring to dye salt :) we never imagined that salt could look so beautiful. We used the colorful salt to fill the jars making really cool looking layers and patterns.
We didn't just stop at the candle holders. With all the people coming to our Shabbat Party we needed lots of food for everyone. Every class made something different to eat; we made delicious fresh salad.
We worked so hard and ripped off all the lettuce leaves.
Then we put our cutting skills to work and cut up cucumbers.
It was a lot of work but somebody had to do it. And this was a great opportunity for us to practice real life skills and give our hands some good exercise.
Look at all the cucumber slices we cut up :) The salad was delicious and our Shabbat Dinner Party was a great success!
Shabbat Shalom!
