Chanukah Coloring Book....in the Making!

I love walking around Torah Toy's headquarters during Chanukah season. I enjoy the most admiring all the beautiful Menorah's coming in all different designes and not even to mention all the assorted color dreidels!

 So many toys are waiting to be paper wrapped and bagged with different color ribbons. And the toys final destination is... the doorsteps of a happy child!

However, this time I noticed something different....I stopped by the art room and spotted one of our artist drawing beautiful Chanukah coloring pages. I couldn't hold myself back than to ask about the images. 

 I was fascinated to hear that Torah Toy is creating  a Chanukah Coloring Book for all their friends called: 8 fun pages for 8 nights of Chanukah. I was able get a hold of a sketch drawing and observe it with much intrigue. This is the initial sketch and the main idea is still in the process of being developed!

I can't  wait for the final product to be out! Every night of Chanukah my little ones will be able to complete a page and each page refines a different skill. The coloring book will be completed soon and available right here for everyone to enjoy :)

My Little Book of Chanukah

-- Click here to print --

This little book of Chanukah is just precious. No need of glue, stapler or scissors to put it together! Just print the page out, fold it in four and surpriseeee! You have a great Little Chanukah book.

My Little Book of Chanukah refines the following skills:

1. Name printing
2. Increasing mean of utterance 
3. Expressive art
4. Fine motor

Wishing you a
 Happy Chanukah :)

Chanukah Toddler Activity Pack

Here are great activities to keep little ones entertained (and learning!) during Chanukah.

The Chanukah Toddler Activity Pack refines many, many skills.

• Rote counting
• Figure Number Recognition
•  Spacial Perception
•  Following simple directions
• Pre-Writing skills
• Pre-Cutting Skills
• Fine Motor
• Patterns
• Color Recognition

Click right here to print the Chanukah Toddler Activity Pack (25 pages).

This pack will keep your little ones engaged all through the eight nights and enjoy some delicious donuts! :)

Happy Chanukah!

Chanukah Coloring Crayons

Coloring is one of my favorite daughters activities. I always hope that her creativity doesn't go beyond the white piece of paper to the freshly painted walls. I try to always overlook, just to make sure that we are coloring where we suppose to...

For Chanukah theme, we made (I must say) precious Chanukah Coloring Crayons. We used our, so what we call, "Chanukah Crayon Maker." It's a Silicone Dreidel Mold that is typically used to make chocolate, jello, ice cubes and baking. We separated ours and keep it in the supplies cabinet (not the kitchen) so we can make new Chanukah Coloring Crayons whenever we run out of them.  

Torah Toy has the Silicone Dreidel Mold in stock (but, hurry... these tend to run out close to Chanukah), and you can jump over to the site to read more about it.

We first remove the paper wrappings, broke the crayons into small pieces, and place them in the Cahnukah Crayon Maker. Once all the dreidels were filled with crayons, we place the Chanukah Crayon Maker carefully in the toaster oven for about 15 minutes. You'd probably have to play around with your oven and see the amount of time needed. You really don't want to burn them up!

Once they have melted, place them in cold icy water to cool them down. You have to be extremely careful when removing them. The top part of the draidel is thin, and you want to make sure that you get the dreidel out ALL in one single piece ;)

Have fun coloring!

DIY Shavuos Flower Manipulatives!!

Wow! Har Sinai was so beautiful… all covered with flowers when Bnei Yisrael received the Torah. For the Shavuos Unit, we use these colorful flower manipulatives. They are extremely inexpensive, super easy to make and endless activities to do.

In order to do it yourself, you need to run to your local dollar store and get a FLOWER shaped swimming noodle. You’ll see they come in various shapes, colors and sizes. I picked up some with the flower shape in assorted colors. When the children are not around, using a knife and cutting board, cut the noodle about one inch apart. With just one noodle, you get so many manipulatives! I have them scattered all around the house… too many!

Here are some activities that you can do with your Little Ones and I’m sure you can come up with so many more!

Classifying - Color Sorting

I placed color tape down on the table making four boxes. I laid a different color flower on each box. Then, I gave my Little One a container full of mix colorful flowers and ask her to sort them according to the color.

Counting

On a piece of paper, I wrote numbers 1-3. Then, right over each number we piled up the corresponding amount of flowers.

Completing a Pattern

I started a pattern using two different color flowers and ask my Little One to complete it. We are just starting with patterns, but if your child is more advance you can use more colors and/or alternations.  

We are going to be using the DIY Shavuos manipulatives to make some crafts too! Come back and visit us to see what we are busy making! Im sure you wouldn’t want to miss out.

Have a Good Shabbos,

Wait! Don't Trow Away Those Macaroon Tins! (Part I)

I must admit we've been eating plenty of Matzah and Macaroons the past few days. When I was younger, we had chocolate and just plain macaroons and you either like them or like them because there wasn't much else that we could eat during Pesach. Well, not anymore! My daughters have the options to chose between Rocky Road Macaroons, Chocolate Chip Macaroons, Coconut Macaroons, Almond Macaroons, Banana Split Macaroons, Mint Macaroons..... Yes, quite a lot! Not I'm left with all these empty tins that are taken over the house! We decided to get working to put them in good use and create educational activities Now, go ahead and get your macaroon tin (I'm sure is somewhere) and get working! Here is Part I of "Wait! Don't Trow Away Those Macaroon Tins!"

Mr. Tzedakah Box

I finally have a Tzedakah Box that is adorable and perfect for a toddler. We want to make sure our kids understand the concept of giving Tzedakah, but don't necessarily have to be in contact with actual money. We removed the macaroon labels from the tin and made a little face using googly eyes, a pompom for a nose and mouth out of foam sheets. We then made two arms and hair out of foam sheets.

Instead of real money, we are using apple juice bottle caps that I grabbed from the bottle caps container I have. Here is my confession. I'm a bottle cap collector. I collect all kinds of caps and keep them in a separate container. We always try to incorporate them in some activity or other. You can hop over to DIY Aleph Bet Manipulatives to get another idea how to use bottle caps. Using a permanent marker, I wrote numbers: one, five, ten and twenty-five.

On the top, I cut out a hole the exact size of the caps. My Little Ones love feeding Mr. Tzedakah Box every morning and they like to sing the Tzedakah song too!

Wishing all of you a great week!

If You Give a Frog a Piece of Matzah...

This new book arrived to Torah Toy’s shelf just on time for Pesach. “If You Give a Frog a Piece of Matzah” was written by Rachel Shifra Tal and Illustrated by Carrie Truitt. The story takes place at a little boy’s Seder table on the night of Pesach. It all starts when the the boy gives the frog a piece of Matzah. Once he takes the piece of Matza, the frog wants to hear all about the story behind it! When he hears that he is one of the plagues, he wants to hear about the rest of the plagues as well! The boy goes over the 10 plagues and explains to the frog what happened in each plague. At the end of the story the boy is happy of being Jewish because Hashem saved us from all the plagues.

“If You Give a Frog a Piece of Matzah,” is a great book to review the 10 plagues in a creative way. The boy interacts in the Seder table with a new found friend, the frog. It’s a wonderful book to keep Little Ones engaged in the story and learn all about the 10 plagues.

Pesach Kosher V’Sameach!