There is a lot to like about Queen Esther but one fun aspect is to assume a queen like her would have some awesome jewels and gems and what better activity than to create our own Make Queen Esther’s Gems to get into the Purim thrill? Combine science, art and fun to create your own DIY Queen Esther’s Gems and explore this character’s role in the story of Purim.
What You’ll Need
- Rock Salt
- Glue (I always buy my glue in bulk and then use as needed)
- Liquid watercolors or food coloring
- Bowls (we used bowls for mixing the rock salt and color and a muffin tin for the glue and rock salt)
- Parchment paper
Putting It Together
- Dye your rock salt whatever colors you wish either using liquid watercolors or food coloring. We did this by placing the rock salt in bowls then squirting in some liquid watercolors. Learn from our mistake: only squirt a little, it spreads easily! Use your fingers or a spoon to help spread the color. If you need more color, then add a little by little more but we added way more than we needed to which meant a longer drying time.
- Let the rock salt dry. It should dry overnight. But if you’re like us and added too much coloring … it took a few days, gulp!
- Once the dyed rock salt is dry, add a little bit of glue at a time to the salt (or vice versa) to create the gems. Let dry. More advice: add too much glue and the salt gets pasty. You want to be able to see the edges and crystals.
- Enjoy your beautiful gems and talk about what it might have been like for Esther to be a Queen in Shushan. We have some book recommendations that you may enjoy supplementing this craft with!
And check back this week for the other Purim activities we did with these gems:
Finished & Loving It
This is a gooey messy science + art activity. And my kids are all about those. But come prepared for this adventure! Fingers and hands were temporarily dyed and the glue can be a total nightmare unless you put down protective covering on your workspace. But the joy of the kids as they combined, observed, and created? PRICELESS!
We dyed our rock salt the different colors of liquid watercolors we had available. I especially like how the blues and purples combined together when making the gems. However, if you want to control the situation and not have a brown gem fest, make sure to only use a couple complimentary colors.
I let my kids have free range while I recorded their scientific approach. The science consisted of choosing which colors to combine, observing what happens when those colors combined, as well as observing and problem solving the amount of rock salt to glue. We did not do any measurements, it was all by touch and feel. Which meant some gems turned out a bit soft and squishy and others retained their crystal forms. This is science! Experiments in action! The kids were interested in how adding more glue or salt changed the texture. And we had some happiness and some disappointment over how some of the gems turned out. And that’s ok! Again: science! They were experimenting, observing, and reacting. And I loved it.
I also love how the gems turned out. They are really quite pretty. And, as you’ll see if you check back this week, can be used in a variety of activities. They are not the most sturdy of pieces, but they can still be used in many ways to learn more about the story of Purim and have fun too, of course!
Chag Purim Sameach!
We have a whole page dedicated to Purim, our Purim Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the Purim activities we plan to do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Purim Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, a wonderful way to introduce Purim! And, now we also have all 13 Jewish holidays bundled together in A Year of Jewish Holidays 3 Part Cards.
If you want to have a ton of Purim early learner activities ready at your fingertips, try our Purim Activities Packet for Early Learners! I am so excited about all the Purim-themed literacy, fine motor skills, math, and play fun!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!
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[…] Gems. We used the DIY Esther’s Gems that we created earlier in the week. But you can use play jewels or gems, colored glass vase […]