Beshalach: Resources and project ideas

English: Israel's Escape from Egypt, illustrat...

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Beshalach: This week’s parsha picks up where Bo left off: the Israelites are leaving Egypt! Except that Pharaoh again changes his mind and chases them to the Red Sea, where Hashem used Moshe to split the Red Sea so the Israelites could walk through. A miracle! When the Israelites complained to Moshe about a lack of food and sweet water, Hashem showed them water and made manna and quail available. Another miracle! The Israelites are attacked by the Amalekites, but Moshe’s prayers and Joshua led the Israelites to defeat them.

Links: Here are the Aish, Torah.org, and Chabad pages with links on Beshalach. Here‘s another interesting group of ideas and links from golden map. Here and here are some coloring sheets, a parsha song, and a fun video from Itche Kadoozy (my older boys love this silly series).

Ideas:

Reenacting the splitting of the red sea using a doorway or costumes and big blue butcher paper

Or make a smaller version to play with

Split sea–I mean, split pea–soup, like this one!

Split sea – I mean, pea – soup

Make a timbrel, tambourine, or other musical instruments (to celebrate the crossing to freedom!) You could use 2 foil pie pans with beans, decorated with stickers, ribbons, streamers, etc.

Learn and sing the song of the sea, Az Yashir (Here are links to $0.99 MP3 downloads with samples to listen to: techno boys choir version, a more traditional boys choir version, and a contemporary version (with a lot of “oi”)

Learn and sing Miriam’s song: Here’s a neat version (with a woman singing) from this Passover CD/MP3 (which we love!)

Make something to remember the manna, like these Manna cookies.

Reenact gathering manna (and throw a little math in) with cotton balls. How much should they gather for each day? On Friday? Imagine what yours would taste like.

Hold a water tasting: see if you and your kids can differentiate between bottled water, filtered water, and tap water. Which is “sweeter”?

Shabbat table talking points: the double challot remembers the double manna for Shabbat, the challah cover below and above remembers the manna’s cover of dew. This might be a good week to make a challah cover, too.

Challah

Another **possible** idea–I don’t know if I can recommend it: has anyone seen the Prince of Egypt, Dreamwork’s animated Pesach story movie? I’m going to try and review it and see if it’s appropriate for my kids, but would love to hear what you think.

Any other good ideas?

Permanent link to this article: https://organizedjewishhome.com/2012/01/30/beshalach_resources_and_project_ideas/

6 comments

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    • Ruchie on February 2, 2012 at 2:42 pm

    http://handsontheparsha.blogspot.com/

    • Sahra on January 22, 2013 at 8:17 pm

    Prince of Egypt is a fantastic movie. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from it, however it is still a hollywood movie and the story line can be warped in some areas. In the movie, the queen finds him, he has a brother named Rameses, he doesn’t know he’s a Hebrew, the way he met Tziporah is a little off. That can confuse children from what actually takes place in the Torah. Other than those things (I think), the movie is awesome! Great depiction of the plagues, why he was sent adrift in a basket, etc. in a child friendly fashion. My family and I watch it over and over. dreamworks did their research and produced a great biblical product.

    • Hana Piha on January 23, 2018 at 6:17 am

    Thank you for leaving these nice ideas!
    like very much the idea of the Maana cookies. im thinking to make white cookies and wrap each cookie individully in a transparent bag. Hide them around the class and everyone has to find their maana.
    On Friday each one has to get two portions.

      • Amital on January 23, 2018 at 4:06 pm
        Author

      Great idea! We’ve done something like that with popcorn with white m&ms. I think cookies would be a hit, too.

    • Malka on December 7, 2018 at 4:42 pm

    Dear,
    I’d like to add some ideas to your already fabulous Parsha resources & ideas.

    What is the best way to reach you?

    With Best Wishes,
    Malka Chomer Nussbaum

      • Amital on December 9, 2018 at 2:50 am
        Author

      Hi Malka!

      You can e-mail me: Amital -at- OrganizedJewishHome.com

      I’m always looking for more great ideas!

      Amital

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