Parshat Lech Lecha: Stars again

This is my second year teaching this curriculum but this was the first week that I actually did the same lesson plan as last year - what a relief! Obviously, it takes ALOT less preparation the second time around. Last year, I decided to focus on the theme of stars, since in this week's parsha, God famously says to Abraham:

"Go outside and look up at the stars in the sky, if you can count them, so too will be your offspring."

We used this verse as a jumping off point to learn about Van Gogh's starry night. I am happy to say that doing this a second time around was equally as successful - the kids loved it and I did a much better job at containing the mess and supplies. My 11 year old daughter said to me in advance of the lesson - "imma, I think that this project is too hard for first graders!" but I think that they did a great job!

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While I had less preparation for this class, I decided to do a different project with other students who I am teaching this year in another setting. The focus of this group is less on art and more on Torah so I decided to focus instead on the lengthier verse (actually from next week's parsha - whoops) in which God promises that Abraham's descendants will be like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. I went with a (somewhat?) simpler project using supplies I already had at home and am happy to get rid of! For some reason, I have alot of craft sand so we just glued different colored sand on the bottom of the page and using silver glitter glue and q-tips, dotted stars in the sky.

Finally, I was honored to write and narrate a new bimbam video for this week's parsha - it was really fun to do and I LOVE the animation that they created for it:

SHABBAT SHALOM!