Lag Ba’Omer starts on May 25th this year and we are getting ready with our 2024 Lag Ba’Omer Shelfie + Starter Activities! This holiday is a fun one for kids (and adults too!) and has so many opportunities for hands-on learning and meaningful fun!
What You’ll Need
- Your favorite books about Lag Ba’Omer (check out our recommendations here!)
- Your favorite Lag Ba’Omer arts, crafts, toy sets, and activities that you already own and/or look below to see if any of ours inspire you to create similar ones!
Putting It Together
Here is the list of activities that I set up. Get inspired or grab whatever of your own! I also plan to add new activities as we create them to this Lag Ba’Omer Shelfie.
- Lag Ba’Omer 3 Part Cards
- Lag Ba’Omer Books
- Jewish Wedding Nomenclature Cards
- Our Wedding Photo Album
- Lag Ba’Omer Traditions Sensory Cards
- Lag Ba’Omer Bonfire Sensory Bin
- Picnic Blanket Weaving Invitation
- Lag Ba’Omer Bow and Arrow Tree Number Match
- Lag Ba’Omer 33 Do a Dot
- Lag Ba’Omer Make a Face + Give a Hair Cut Invitation
- Picnic Food Counting Invitation
Finished & Loving It!
Lag Ba’Omer 3 Part Cards
Our Lag Ba’Omer 3 Part Cards share a description of the holiday as well as common customs and traditions. They are a wonderful efficient way to expose and teach your children about the holiday.
And I love that it’s an activity that children of all ages can engage in by either matching the images and/or the words. I also absolutely LOVE that my middle two are now able to read the summary cards themselves!
Lag Ba’Omer Books
We still haven’t made a Book Box for this holiday! It is such a great way to gather holiday books so I think it needs to be on our to-do list for this year or next. This time I set them up on this nifty book display rack (aka a dish rack!) so the kids could see their covers and make their selections.
Jewish Wedding Nomenclature Cards
Last year I made these Jewish Wedding Nomenclature Cards to review some elements of (Reform) Jewish weddings with my children. My daughter was very into reading all of the summary cards which was awesome.
My kids haven’t been to any Jewish weddings that they can remember so I love exposing them to these traditions in this way.
In our synagogue’s education program students learn about Jewish lifecycles as part of the 5th grade curriculum. This of course includes Jewish weddings. Is it the same in your children’s supplemental schools?
Our Wedding Photo Album
I realized I definitely don’t bring out our wedding album enough. The kids were fascinated to see us (perhaps because we look so much younger? haha) as well as so many friends and family members. We pointed out the chuppah and ketubah, the circling and smashing of the glass, all these traditions they had just read about in the Jewish Wedding Nomenclature Cards! It was really neat for them to see what these traditions looked like in our wedding.
We are coming up on 15 years this Labor Day!! I think I’ll need to dig out the wedding video so we can all have a video sesh 🙂
Lag Ba’Omer Traditions Sensory Cards
Have you ever made sensory cards? They are so easy to make! I printed out the main traditions of Lag Ba’Omer in large black letters, then used a hot glue gun to fill in the letters. Once dry, the kids can use their pointer finger to trace the letters, getting that tactile feedback and creating muscle memory for creating the letters and words.
I love setting out word cards in general, even if some of my children are too young to read them. Not only do they help remind us of our learning themes of goals (in this case the main traditions of this holiday), they automatically expose the children to letters and words.
Print your free Lag Ba’Omer Traditions Sensory Cards printable here!
Lag Ba’Omer Bonfire Sensory Bin
My youngest helped me gather the sticks we used for this sensory bin and was so happy to see them in action! I added some cardboard graham crackers and felt chocolate from previous years, as well as rocks, red gems, and orange and yellow wooden flames. We’ve used these flames in previous years for a loose parts invitation and to play tic tac toe!
The kids love the DIY marshmallows on a stick that we used again this year in this sensory bin. Grab some air dry clay and mold your own in just a few seconds! If you don’t want to go the clay route, cotton balls or pom poms always work too!
Picnic Blanket Weaving Invitation
This picnic blanket weaving invitation is so simple but practices some great skills and makes a cute Lag Ba’Omer decoration. I pre-cut the lines in the red paper and invited, modeled, and sometimes helped the kids weave the white paper strips through. Weaving paper is not easy when you are first learning! But it’s a great practice of fine motor skills, coordination, and is actually a math practice too which is so cool!
Lag Ba’Omer Bow and Arrow Tree Number Match
These cards are new this year and can be yours for free! I thought they were a fun way to remind the kids of the historical connection to bows and arrows and involve them in a simple number match invitation.
I used tree trunks as the practice targets. Vegetarian family here haha!
You can print your free Lag Ba’Omer Bow and Arrow Tree Number Match printable here!
Lag Ba’Omer 33 Do a Dot
We’ve been counting the Omer each night with our abacus counter this year. I love how the children can tell we are getting closer and closer to the 33rd day and Lag Ba’Omer. This Do a Dot is another simple way to emphasize that Lag Ba’Omer lands on the 33rd day of the Omer. Can you guess how many dots there are on the sheet? Yep, 33! So a good counting and one to one correspondence practice as well!
We used dot markers but you could use dot stickers and/or pom poms or buttons or whatever you want!
You can print your free Lag Ba’Omer 33 Do a Dot printable here!
Lag Ba’Omer Make a Face + Give a Hair Cut Invitation
This Make a Face + Give a Hair Cut invitation is a simple and cute cutting practice that supports learning about this tradition of Lag Ba’Omer.
The kids added googly eyes and drew the rest of the face, then practiced those cutting skills by snipping the pre cut “strands” and giving their face a hair cut! I printed on cardstock because that’s much easier for beginning cutters to use as the thickness is more sturdy than regular printer paper.
You can print your free Make a Face + Give a Hair Cut invitation printable here!
Picnic Food Counting Invitation
By now you sure know I love simple themed developmental skill practices and this Picnic Food Counting Invitation is one of those! I set out different colored wooden fruit (get yours at Woodpeckers Crafts and don’t forget to use WithLoveIma5 for a discount!) and invited the children to count out the different colors using our wooden ten frame. Boom!
Color identification, sorting, counting, and one to one correspondence all practiced within the larger theme of Lag Ba’Omer and the tradition of picnics. Yay!
However you explore, learn and/or celebrate, I hope it’s joyful!
Chag Sameach!
We have a whole page dedicated to Lag Ba’Omer, our Lag Ba’Omer Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the Lag Ba’Omer activities we plan to do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Lag Ba’Omer Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, a wonderful way to introduce Lag Ba’Omer! And, now we also have all 13 Jewish holidays bundled together in A Year of Jewish Holidays 3 Part Cards.
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!
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