It’s that time of year again–school starting, the weather hopefully getting cooler–which means it’s also time to prepare for the High Holidays with our High Holidays 2024/5785 Shelfie + Starter Activities! Rosh Hashanah starts just over a month from now so plenty of time to learn, explore, play and have meaningful and fun High Holiday learning experiences!
As always, meaningful Jewish learning doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated. Simple and even repeated activities that your kids enjoy are absolutely beautiful, powerful, and so amazing.
This year we just started school today (4 in 4 different schools once again!), I’m my third week into a new job, we completed none of our summer projects … so yes, simple and tried and true featured in my Shelfie this year! Not only is it okay, the kids had a wonderful time exploring and playing. Which makes it so lovely!
I also have news which I find very exciting, and I hope you will too: after years of sharing Activities Packets for Early Learners for other Jewish holidays, I have finally put together an amazing packet with over 100 pages of awesome activities all about the High Holidays! I hope your family enjoys our High Holidays Activities Packet for Early Learners! And you guessed it! Multiple activities from this Packet found their way onto this year’s Shelfie and the kids loved them!
What You’ll Need
- Your favorite High Holiday books (check out our recommendations here!)
- Your favorite High Holiday 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 High Holidays Shelfie.
- High Holidays Book Box
- Rosh Hashanah Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
- Yom Kippur Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
- Rosh Hashanah Play Set
- Shofrot
- Beehive High Holiday Candleholders
- Apple Balance Challenge
- Rosh Hashanah Simanim Garland
- Beaded Apples
- DIY Apple + Bee Vase
- Apple + Honey Chunkies
- Dip the Apple in the Honey Line Tracing
- Happy Birthday World Sensory Bin
- High Holiday Memory Game
- Join the Apple Seeds
- Loose Parts Apple Card Counting
Make the grade for less. Back-to-school Rollbacks & more.
Finished & Loving It!
High Holidays Book Box
It is always so special to look through our bookcase and gather all the holiday books. Each year we seem to have a couple new ones, mostly thanks to PJ Library (if you haven’t signed up to receive your free Jewish monthly books, do so now!).
The full how-to for the book box can be found here. I also love adding a fun reading challenge to our holidays with our holiday-themed reading bingo challenge. You can download the High Holidays Reading Bingo Challenge printable for free here!
Rosh Hashanah 3 Part Cards
For my family, it’s very helpful to review the holidays with our 3 Part Cards. These cards are concise and share information about the holiday and its traditions and customs. Simple but helpful learning opportunity, and options for image and summary (reading) matching!
You can buy your copy of the Rosh Hashanah Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards here.
Yom Kippur 3 Part Cards
Since Yom Kippur falls so quickly after Rosh Hashanah, I usually set up a couple activities, and at least our Yom Kippur 3 Part Cards, on the holiday Shelfie. Since Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are so often spoken about together, I want the kids to understand their connections. We will do more Yom Kippur focused activities in the ten days after Rosh Hashanah ends and before Yom Kippur starts.
To get your family ready for Yom Kippur, buy your Yom Kippur Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards from the With Love, Ima Shop now!
Rosh Hashanah Play Set
I love having imaginary play sets available for kids for whatever creative play they desire. It’s really special to have Jewish holiday sets because my kids just don’t see these elsewhere. This set is a wonderful opportunity to talk about these special foods and ritual objects, even practice the prayers. But, really, I just like to have them available and visible for however the kids choose to interact with them.
Shofrot
We always have to have our plastic shofrot available for all kinds of blowing and shofar sound making! I had the shofar sound print out available in case the kids wanted to practice the traditional sounds. They did not but there’s always the next play opportunity to give it a try!
Beehive High Holiday Candleholders
I made these Beehive High Holiday Candleholders a couple years ago and they still bring me such joy. My friend gave me the adorable felt bees for some extra bee and honey love! They are so simple to make and are a lovely decoration for our Shelfie and our Rosh Hashanah seder table!
Apple Balance Challenge
I saw Days With Grey share an apple balance challenge on Instagram and I knew it would be a fun, and oh so perfect, Rosh Hashanah activity! Apples + balancing (of the scales) if you want to make that connection too 😉
Days With Grey used real apples, toilet paper rolls and plastic cups. I brought out our wooden apples and pomegranates, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls and jumbo popsicle sticks for my kiddos’ challenge. They thought it was so much fun!
Rosh Hashanah Simanim Garland
A couple year ago we made this beautiful simanim garland that we displayed on our shelfie and by our dinner table so we could see it while we ate our holiday meals and I loved setting it up on this year’s Shelfie!
The kids appreciate seeing their artwork displayed and I love how it is such a simple (and beautiful!) way to review the Rosh Hashanah simanim.
Beaded Apples
We made these adorable Beaded Apples a couple years ago. I’ve used them for Shelfie and Rosh Hashanah seder table decorations and I highly recommend. It was a great fine motor activity for the kids and they really love the way they turned out. So sweet!
DIY Apple + Bee Vase
New this year is a process art DIY Apple + Bee Vase. I used my Cricut to cut out the apple and bee shapes but you could easily free cut these. The kids painted the apples with red liquid watercolors, then squeezed cut lemons over the paint. I got the process art technique idea from Friends Art Lab. It makes cool marble effects!
For the bees I set out black and yellow paint and forks and the kids stamped the bee stripes with their forks and paints. Easy peasy and oh so cute! Make sure you are following us on Instagram because I plan to share a reel of our how-to later this week 😉
We taped the apples to toilet paper rolls (front and back) and the bees to pipe cleaners so very low lift.
I really think they make an adorable cheerful apples and honey take that the kids were so happy to see displayed.
Apple + Honey Chunkies
We absolutely love all of the wooden chunkies we have gotten from Woodpeckers Crafts and decorated in some many different ways. We made these tape resist apple chunkies years ago and they always bring a smile to my face! You can DIY your own Rosh Hashanah chunkies decorations–remember to use the code WithLoveIma5 for a discount!
Dip the Apple in the Honey Line Tracing
How adorable is this line tracing challenge, inviting your kiddo to push the apple along the different lines to the honey? I was initially inspired by a Happy Tot Shelf activity where she invited her kiddo to move a pom pom along different lines with a pipe cleaner wand. Totally brilliant! And totally an opportunity to put a Jewish twist on it with a wooden apple and honey stick, and with some Rosh Hashanah symbols, of course!
This printable is now available in our new High Holidays Activities Packet for Early Learners! Invite your kid to push that apple along the lines and/or trace with a crayon, paint stick, whatever will encourage them to practice some fine motor skills and enjoy some Jewish learning at the same time!
Happy Birthday World Sensory Bin
Sensory bins bring me so much joy. And I love when they are simple. And the kids do too! This is a super simple example that did its job: review a Rosh Hashanah concept (the birthday of the world) while allowing the kids sensory exploration. Boom! I had the colored rainbow rice already made and in my storage, so all I had to do was grab the cupcake liners and birthday candles. So simple and so wonderful!
High Holiday Memory Game
This is another new activity that’s now available in our High Holidays Activities Packet for Early Learners and it’s another simple, but oh-so-wonderful holiday review! Memory games are always great for practicing recognition, identification, concentration and memory skills. This game is leveled up in 2 ways–High Holiday symbols mean instant holiday learning! As a child turns over a card, talk about what the symbol means and its connection to the holiday. Or, you can lay out all the cards before you start and do an initial discussion before the fun.
The second level up is to add magnatiles to the front and back, and a magnetic wand. Thanks for the brilliant idea Learning Adventures With Noah! For our version, my kiddos used the wand to help turn over each card sandwiched between the magnatiles, looked at the image, then found the match or passed it along a sibling. Very fun!
Join the Apple Seeds
Yes, another new activity available in our High Holidays Activities Packet for Early Learners! I saw Learn With Kids Crafts post a join the dots activity and knew, with a little tweaking, it would be perfect for some apple seed joining (and color and counting review!).
I absolutely loved watching my four year old concentrate on finding the correct color/seed match and connect all those apples together. Easy, simple fine motor and other developmentally appropriate fun!
Loose Parts Apple Card Counting
I made these Apple Counting Cards a couple years (and yes, they too are available in our High Holidays Activities Packet for Early Learners!). They are a great activity on their own or matched with some fun manipulatives, like these adorable apple erasers.
Practice counting, one to one correspondence, and then matching all that with the Rosh Hashanah themed manipulatives! I really love bringing Jewish learning into everyday developmentally appropriate activities 🙂
Just the beginning …
It was our last day of summer break (yesterday!) when we explored this Shelfie and all the activities and we had such a great time! These activities are just the beginning of our learning about the traditions and celebrations that relate to the High Holidays. I have lots of ideas planned for the next month so make sure to check back (or subscribe!!) but so much learning and fun already happened just in this afternoon and with these few shelves!
We have a whole page dedicated to the High Holidays, our High Holidays Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the High Holidays activities we do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
New this year!!! I’ve finally made a High Holidays Activities Packet for Early Learners! Like our other holiday activities packets, this packet is over 100 pages, filled with so many amazing literacy, math, fine motor skill, play, and just plain fun activities! This would be a wonderful addition to your child’s High Holiday learning experience!
And don’t forget our Rosh Hashanah Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, our Yom Kippur Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, or the High Holidays Montessori-Style 3 Part Card Bundle, all a wonderful way to introduce High Holidays!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!!
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