I really love Shavuot and the promise and sweetness it brings so I was very happy to set up this Shavuot Shelfie + Starter Activities for the kids to get us all in the Shavuot frame of mind!
Most of the activities I included on this Shavuot Shelfie werre geared to my preschooler, his current interests, and his current work. What’s so beautiful about shelfies, and especially DIY ones, is that you gather whatever works for your child. The shelves are invitations to the work and interests they currently have, with connections to the holiday. It makes for easy and meaningful fun and learning!
What You’ll Need
- Your favorite Shavuot books (check out our recommendations here!)
- Your favorite Shavuot 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 Shavuot Shelfie.
- Shavuot Book Box
- Shavuot Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
- 10 Commandments Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
- Felt Flower Mount Sinai
- The Torah is like Milk and Honey (Chunkies)
- Shavuot and 10 Commandments Counting Cards
- Nature Ten Frame
- Shavuot and 10 Commandments Counting and Matching Cards
- Mount Sinai and Peg People
- Flower Chunkie
- 10 Commandments Tablets
- Colorful Scarves
- Garden Bouquets
Finished & Loving It!
Shavuot Book Box
We always love making holiday themed boxes to hold our favorite holiday books.
This year we made Shavuot flowers from coffee filters and cupcake liners. They were so simple to create and the kids loved the process art fun of it! All you need to do is invite the kiddos to use pipettes to transfer liquid watercolor to the filters and liners. The colors spread much more on the filters, creating unique designs that are harder to anticipate. On the cupcake liners, the colors don’t move as much but the kids loved the different opportunity to be more precise in their color placement. Once the flowers dried, we glued them to our paint recycled box and added our Shavuot books!
I chose to decorate the box with flowers because I love the Shavuot tradition of decorating houses and synagogues with flowers and greenery.
I always love kicking off our Shavuot reading with the book The Littlest Mountain. It’s so sweet. My preschooler was still talking about it when we were settling into bed this evening. He also chose Kopecks for Blintzes which is a silly one, but with a good moral.
Shavuot Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
I started off our holiday review with reading, then having the kids match the cards for the Shavuot Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards set. It’s such a short and simple way to review the main themes, traditions, symbols and customs of the holiday.
10 Commandments Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
New this year! In the past Shavuots I haven’t really focused all too much on the 10 Commandments. We would incorporate them into a craft or activity but not spend a lot of other focus on them. This year I chose to focus on them more in fun and engaging ways. The first is with our 10 Commandments Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards. This is such an easy way to start learning, then reviewing the 10 commandments.
My daughter pointed out that some of the images could work for multiple commandments. Totally true! So many of these commandments are about kindness and love, which could be depicted with the same or similar images. That right there shows us what we really value!
Felt Flower Mount Sinai
I used a long piece of green felt over our wobble board to create a fun Mount Sinai. I added some felt flowers that could be moved around for some open-ended creative play. I also set up a simple pattern prompt with them that I invited the kids to copy. So easy to just take a minute to do it but I love how much learning can happen even in these short, easy and fun experiences!
The Torah is like Milk and Honey (Chunkies)
I love the new chunkies products from Woodpeckers Crafts and when I saw the honey and ice cream options I knew they’d be perfect for Shavuot! Easy peasy acrylic painting later and we had standable Shavuot decorations as well as fun toys! These remind us that the Torah is sweet like milk and honey.
Shavuot and 10 Commandments Counting Cards
New this year and part of our fabulous Shavuot Activity Pack, we have Shavuot Counting Cards as well as 10 Commandments Counting Cards. These cards have either the Shavuot or 10 commandments symbols on them to represent the numbers 1-10, the number written out, the numeral, and dots to represent the number. So many ways to review numeral identification, number sequencing, counting, matching and more while also being exposed to Shavuot and the 10 Commandments. Yay!
Nature Ten Frame
I knew I wanted to combine multiple natural activities since a tradition of Shavuot is decorating your home with greenery and blossoms. I love this Nature Ten Frame. All it is is sticks leftover from our Lag Ba’Omer activities! I didn’t even glue them down, but you easily could to make the ten frame more stable and permanent. I gathered some mint leaves and invited my preschooler to draw some of our Shavuot and 10 Commandments Counting Cards and use the leaves to count out the correct number in the ten frame.
Months and months ago we worked with ten frames on a regular basis. Then we got out of practice. My guy initially forgot to go to the bottom left after the fifth space and sometimes added two leaves in one space. This was such a great opportunity to model for him how the ten frame worked. As soon as I modeled it, he remembered again and went right back to work!
Shavuot and 10 Commandments Counting and Matching Cards
Also New this year, and part of our fabulous Shavuot Activity Pack of course, are our Shavuot Counting Matching Cards as well as 10 Commandments Counting Matching Cards. Using the same symbols for each of the sets from the Counting Cards, the Counting Matching Cards each have a certain number of symbols on the card, then three numeral options on the bottom of the card for the child to match the correct number to. I provided a clothespin for him to indicate the correct number to add a little fine motor skill practice at the same time.
He totally loved this activity and wanted to do both sets at the same sitting. Awesome!
Mount Sinai and Peg People
I saw these triangle wood cut outs on Woodpeckers Crafts and instantly thought of small world mountain play! I painted this one green to represent Mount Sinai and added some peg people for open ended play.
If you don’t have a wooden mountain, make one out of cardboard! My goal here was to help the kids visualize Mount Sinai and the Jews present at this special event. And to encourage some open-ended play!
Flower Chunkie
Another adorable chunkie from Woodpeckers Crafts! It’s great as a decoration and reminder of how Mount Sinai burst into bloom when the Torah was received.
10 Commandments Tablets
Super duper easy 10 Commandments Tablets—just cut your tablets out of cardboard and glue on the kid-friendly commandment modifications to them. I love this is an additional visual to expose and review the commandments with the kiddos!
Colorful Scarves
I included our colorful scarves for open-ended play possibilities. I have some ideas of flower creation, but really, it’s up to them!
Garden Bouquets
I had to include some of our garden flowers to the shelfie to bring nature into the room and to remind us of the blossoming of Mount Sinai.
Just the beginning …
We had such a great time with all these starter activities! And these are truly starter activities, just the beginning of our learning about the traditions and celebrations that relate to Shavuot.
I have lots of ideas planned for the next couple weeks so make sure to check back (or subscribe!!) but so much learning already happened just in this afternoon and with these few shelves!
We have a whole page dedicated to Shavuot, our Shavuot Hub. Check it out! It will include some of the Shavuot activities we do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Shavuot Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, and our Shavuot Activity Pack, a wonderful way to introduce the holiday!
Check out our recommended Shavuot books from our Bookshop.org Shop!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!!
*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link!*
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