This year, during our history lessons, we are also adding in a study of biblical feasts. We are using Celebrating Biblical Feasts: In Your Home or Church for the information. We will definitely discuss most of them and read additional books on them, but we won’t be celebrating each one (I know that I cannot handle all the prepping)! We might end up continuing this study for a few years, and then doing a select few each year. I never make long-term goals with homeschooling, because we really love the ability to be flexible with all the things we want to tackle.
The one that I knew we would definitely do, and was the first one that was covered, was Shabbat. This is the weekly celebration that begins on the day of rest. Shabbat dinner is on Friday night and prepared so that Saturday, Shabbat, can be a day of rest. In order for it to be a day of rest, all the cleaning and prep has to be done on Friday. This made it a packed day to get everything done. I am impressed at those who manage this weekly because I would struggle.
Before Friday hit, we did all our studying. We really have come to love Sammy Spider’s First books. They have one for many of the holidays, and it adds a fun storytelling element to seeing the different things that are done. The girls also created a Challah cover. Normally it would be embroidered, but we made it with markers on the fabric.
Friday morning we made the Challah, which is a braided bread. Ours looked like roast chicken when we were done. Bread is not my forte, but we did enjoy the process and the results. For our dinner, we did not make anything out of the ordinary, which was a nice touch in the book. It did give some traditional meal options but also expressed making something that the family was used to eating if this was new, or in our case, a one-time educational activity. We enjoyed a pot roast with green beans and a potato gratin. We also had our candles and juice to represent our wine.
The book walks you through the whole script for everyone, the mother and father. After going through that process, I thought it was a very cool experience, minus all the prepping.
We have always enjoyed learning about other culture’s celebrations and this theme is definitely a must-do. I hope that we get to celebrate another one or two, but if not, we are definitely going to read and learn about them.