Tashlich Sensory Science Experiment

This morning we had some Tashlich Sensory Science Experiment fun! During the kids’ morning break from distance learning, we popped outside and read the PJ Library Rosh Hashanah book Tashlich at Turtle Rock. This is a sweet book that talks about the ritual of Tashlich in words kids can understand and relate to. I love how they use items they find in nature (acorn hats) to toss into the water and think about what they’d like to do different next year.

Using the book as an introduction to Tashlich, the kids then got to use their own “breadcrumbs” and experience practicing doing Tashlich. Even better, the materials we used made fun science reactions and great sensory play!

The kids got to learn more about Tashlich, talk about scientific reactions, and get their hands messy. It was a perfect distance learning break and a great way to review and prepare for the High Holidays! Hope you enjoy this Tashlich Sensory Science Experiment too!

What You’ll Need

Vinegar
Blue food coloring
Tub, bin, tupperware, or sensory table
Baking soda
Water
Ice cube tray

Putting It Together

1. Make the baking soda breadcrumbs by mixing together baking soda and enough water to make a paste. The paste should not be too thick but needs to be watery enough to be able to transfer into an ice cube tray. How much baking soda depends on how many cubes you want to make. I used about 2 cups of baking soda and that made quite a lot of cubes.

2. Put the baking soda cubes into the freezer and freeze until frozen through. When you’re ready for your activity, plop the cubes into a bowl or container to make it easy for the kids to grab a cube.

3. Put some vinegar into a tub, bin, tupperware, or sensory table. You don’t need a ton of vinegar, just enough for the cubes to go into. But they do not need to be submerged. I had probably a little less than an inch of vinegar covering the bottom of my plastic tub.

4. Add blue food coloring and stir to make the vinegar look like a body of water.

5. Before we put the cubes into the vinegar we read Tashlich at Turtle Rock to remind the kids what Tashlich was and more traditional ways of doing Tashlich. I had them close their eyes and think about things they did in the past year that weren’t so nice and that they’d like to do differently or change for next year. If you don’t have Tashlich at Turtle Rock, no problem! You can always tell your own Tashlich story or just review how this ritual works and what the purpose of the baking soda breadcrumbs are.

(Have you signed up for PJ Library yet? If not, don’t wait! We received our copy of Tashlich at Turtle Rock from PJ Library. They are such an amazing resource and organization!)

6. Have each person grab a cube and say something they want to change or do better for the next year. After the make that intention, they can toss the cube into the vinegar, just the same as we toss our breadcrumbs into the moving body of water to cast off our sins from this past year.

7. Once the cube makes contact with the vinegar, it should start fizzing. My kids loved hearing and seeing the cubes fizz and dissolve and were super excited to get more and more cubes, think of intentions and toss them in.

8. Once they had gone through their cubes and intentions they spent time playing with the cubes and watching them dissolve into the vinegar. We talked about the scientific reasons the fizz was happening while they played.

Finished & Loving It!

The kids had fun thinking about ways they could change + loved seeing the sciencey reaction when the baking soda and vinegar mixed. They played with the baking soda cubes until they dissolved and still had time to run around before needing to log back into zoom 👍

At our old synagogue we tossed in duck food to a pond in the park by the synagogue. At our current synagogue we find sticks or stones or some kind of nature object (like in the book!) and toss them into a pond at a park. Both are also filled with singing, eating honey cake and being together with our community. It’s one of our family’s favorite parts of Rosh Hashanah ❤️

We all really enjoyed this fun and sensory take on Tashlich. Whenever it’s possible, I love having the kids learn about Judaism through engaging, sensory, and meaningful activities. This Tashlich Sensory Science Experiment was another great example of learning through play!

How do you do Tashlich?