Parshat Vaera: Frogs!

It was too tempting not to do something with frogs for this week's parsha. While realistic frogs may not be so cute, cartoon-style frogs certainly are! I decided to do a "directed drawing" for the first time. I definitely wouldn't do this often but I think that there are some good reasons for doing so - it demands the kids' attention - (it is a skill to listen to each step!), it gives them a sense of accomplishment to actually draw something themselves (not just coloring in a coloring page!), and the results are so damn cute.I basically spent the whole time saying things like "see, you can do it," "you can all draw," "each one will come out different but great," "you didn't think you could draw a frog!"

In addition to introducing "directed drawing," I also wanted to use watercolors for the first time. It took me a while to figure out how to do this since those packages of water colors that they sell are too expensive and I didn't want all of the colors accessible to them. Thanks to the internet, I realized two pretty obvious things: 1) FOOD COLORING makes great and cheap water colors! 2) Adding water to a lot of regular paint basically makes watercolor. Duh - well, now I know. I only wanted to give them blue and green to make my life simple. I tried to show them a little bit about blending and patting with a paper towel but mostly just let them at it.

I considered using the frog activity as an opportunity to talk about Monet's lilypads and ponds like this adorable project, but I decided it was just too much to try to squeeze in. In general, I have been feeling more and more like I need TWO lessons on each parsha - one to really teach and one to create.

What I did do though was play a couple of fun frog games - there are tons!. Obviously, all the kids were happy to leap around the room like frogs (the problem of course was getting them to STOP this activity). The other big hit was bringing these plastic jumping frogs (best 2.5 nis I ever spent :))

If I had more time to actually teach, I would have talked more about what they thought the plague of frogs felt like for the Egyptians, why they thought the plague was specifically frogs (emptying out of the Nile, the Egyptian frog god of fertility), maybe some fun frog facts (frogs don't drink, they absorb water...), etc.

Maybe next year. In the meantime, their frogs came out adorable and they were proud of their ability to draw and paint them on their own.