Marbled Chalk Tashlich Program

Tashlich is one of my favorite (and very kid-friendly!) Rosh Hashanah rituals and I absolutely love making special Tashlich activities, just like this Marbled Chalk Tashlich Program! This year our synagogue is changing the date they are doing Tashlich, and while Tashlich is allowed to be performed anytime during the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, for our family it is a special tradition to do it on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I will be sad not to experience this ritual with our community, as I think it’s such a special opportunity for the kids to be involved when adult services just don’t work for mine right now, but I do look forward to creating a Tashlich experience that is meaningful, and doable, for my family.

I created a new Tashlich program sheet that includes a few prayers and songs I plan to use as our introduction to Tashlich. Many thanks to Congregation Rodeph Shalom for the text to some of these prayers. If you want an absolutely beautiful drash and rendition of the Sanctuary song, please check out this video by Cantor Julia Cadrain of the Central Synagogue, I can’t get this out of my head!

After reading (and trying to sing!) our program during Tashlich, then of course will come the real action of Tashlich–tossing rocks and sticks into the water as we deeply think about what we want to change in this upcoming year. And because I am who I am, I decided to have the kiddos decorate our programs with a fun new and so super simple process art: Marbled Chalk! This art process works for Tashlich because it creates a very light but beautiful blue marbled effect on the paper. We can still read all the words, but we’ve upped our program to something kid-made and beautiful. The process would also work just for fun–give it a try!

What You’ll Need

Cardstock
Tashlich program printable, if you wish, or create your own
Chalk. We used only blue to make the connection to water but you can use whatever colors you want
Tub or deep tray
Water
Either a grater or mallet

Putting It Together

Print the Tashlich program, or your own program, on a piece of cardstock.
Either grate or smash your chalk into chalk dust. We put the chalk in a bag, then a kid got the joy of smashing it with a mallet. You could also grate it (parent supervision recommended!).
Fill up a tub or deep tray with water.
Sprinkle the chalk all over the water. It’s ok that most will sink to the bottom, some should stay on the surface.
Place your cardstock on the surface of the water, quickly removing it and flipping it over to dry. The chalk dust will adhere very quickly to the paper!
Let dry and admire the subtle beautiful marbled effect.
Bring your program to your Tashlich ceremony and have a wonderful, meaningful experience!

Finished & Loving It!

My kids are always interested in trying new process art methods! They were very excited to see how this one came together, especially when they saw that a mallet was involved, ha!

Smashing the chalk is a good skill practice in itself, as is using the pincer grasp to grad the chalk dust and sprinkle on the water.

The key to this process art is not to let your paper sink or stay too long in the water. We did this for our first attempt and could see a difference between that and our later, quicker tries. In any case, I really loved seeing the marbled chalk decoration on the paper!

As you can see, the coloring is faint and hard to see in these photos. But because we want to use these during our ritual, I want to read the words so having them visible is a good thing! We used some glittery chalk in this mixture and the sparkles pop up in the light and it’s really lovely. May your Tashlich, High Holidays, and 5785 bring you much sweetness, peace and love!