Tu B’Shevat is one of my family’s favorite holidays so the kids were so excited to take an active role in preparing for the holiday with this super fun Tu B’Shevat Scavenger Hunt!
The Symbolic Foods of Tu B’Shevat
Tu B’Shevat celebrates the birthday, or new year of the trees. It is the start of the growing season in Israel. It’s a holiday all about appreciating what trees (and other plants) do for us and by saying thank you to the trees with blessings. Other traditional practices for this holiday involve planting trees and doing tikkun olam. And because we’re Jews, there’s always food involved too!
Like with many Jewish holidays, the food components of Tu B’Shevat have special significance. This is the holiday where you taste many different fruits, as well as taste the seven species found in the Torah. You’re supposed to taste fruits from the following categories: fruits with tough outer shells and edible interiors, fruits with edible exteriors and inedible pits, and fruits that are entirely edible. We also eat the seven species mentioned in the torah to connect us to torah.
A wonderful way to taste these foods is as part of a family Tu B’Shevat Seder. PJ library, ReformJudaism.org, and MyJewishLearning all have sweet Tu B’Shevat seders that you can check out. Enjoy!
But in order to have a seder you need to first get the food! And what better way to get the food than to involve your kids in shopping for it!
It always makes holidays more special when the kids actively participate and engage not only with the celebration, but also with the preparation. And Tu B’Shevat is such a fun and easy holiday to participate in, for adults and children alike.
This Tu B’Shevat Scavenger Hunt makes looking for the special foods we eat at a Tu B’Shevat Seder fun and special! Your kids can be 100% involved and that will make the entire process more exciting and interesting to them. And the end result = tasty deliciousness and a meaningful Jewish experience! Yum!
What You’ll Need
- Tu B’Shevat scavenger hunt printable (picture version) or Tu B’Shevat Food Scavenger Hunt (words-only version)
- Pen, pencil or even stickers!
- You’re favorite grocery store
- Your kids 🙂
Putting it together
1.Print out the free Tu B’Shevat Scavenger Hunt printable or Tu B’Shevat Food Scavenger Hunt. We used the first version the past few years as my kids were pre-literate. I made a new version for 2021 with just the words so that the kids can think of which foods match the category. It also refers to a CSA box since many of us are not going into grocery stores right now 🙁
2. Head to the grocery store with your kids.
3. Let them move through the grocery store looking for the items on the Tu B’Shevat scavenger hunt printable. When they find an item, they can put a check in the box or even use a cute tree or nature sticker!
Either you, or the kids if they are able, can read each heading to explain what type of food you are looking for. In that way, the kids learn that on Tu B’Shevat we eat from these different categories. Many kids may not know or think about the differences among fruits so this is a perfect way to introduce this concept.
You can also take this opportunity to explain that it’s tradition on Tu B’Shevat to eat the seven species mentioned in the Torah. Some of these foods also fit in the other fruit categories. So depending on how much depth you want to go into, you can easily incorporate a whole discussion on sorting and categorizing. I love making holiday activities both fun and educational!
The Tu B’Shevat Scavenger Hunt is fun on its own but you can also use the printable as your seder shopping list. In that way your children will be actively involved for preparing for the holiday and for the special Seder practice. And it will be one less thing off your to-do list!
Finished and Loving It!
My kids loved going through our local market on their Tu B’Shevat Scavenger Hunt searching for these foods! My oldest read off the categories and they both had so much fun identifying foods in addition to the sample images on the printable. They were so excited to pick up a fruit then check the printable to see what category it would fall under. And some are still a surprise because they are new fruits to us–like the star fruit! We’ve never had star fruit before and don’t know what it looks like on the inside. We are so excited to find out at our seder!
We found many of our Tu B’Shevat foods in the bulk section so the kids also loved being able to scoop the dried fruit and nuts into the bags. I find holiday activities more meaningful anytime the kids can be hands-on during the activity.
We are all ready with our food items for our yummy Tu B’Shevat Seder. We look forward to tasting these foods, some for the first time of the year, some for the first time ever! And we very much look forward to thanking the trees for making all these foods possible. And the kids are thankful they got to find all these foods all by themselves with the Tu B’Shevat Scavenger Hunt!
Don’t forget to check out our other Tu B’Shevat activities:
Tu B’Shevat Thank You to the Trees Challenge
Does your family have a Tu B’Shevat seder each year? How do you prepare for it? How else do you celebrate the holiday of Tu B’Shevat?
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