All About Shabbat: An IssieRoots Activity

illustration of a family of four people sitting at a table with a cream colored table cloth. On the table are Shabbat candles, a bottle of wine and a challah.

IssieRoots is a collection of interactive educational activities for Jewish and Muslim holidays, designed by the staff of Beit Issie Shapiro and for the enrichment and enjoyment of children of varying abilities. All activities are offered in English and in either Hebrew or Arabic so they can be enjoyed by Jewish and Muslim children in Israel and around the world.

All About Shabbat

In honor of the global initiative, The Shabbat Project, we created an inclusive activity for children of all abilities and backgrounds to learn more about Shabbat. In this activity, students join Gili, as she celebrates Shabbat with her family and discovers fun facts about Shabbat. The activity is divided into three sections: The Shabbat Table, Shabbat Morning, and About Shabbat. Students can go back and forth between the sections learning things such as traditional Shabbat foods, the meaning of the word Shabbat, and even hear psukim where Shabbat is mentioned in the Torah.

Use this link to play All About Shabbat on the Jigzi website: All About Shabbat

Here is a sneak peek at some of the pages:

3 squares, blue square with image of shabbat candles an wine with text "Shabbat Table", red square with image of girl in bed waking up with text "Shabbat Morning", yellow square with the word shabbat in hebrew, text reads "About Shabbat"

Choose what you would like to learn more about: Shabbat Table, Shabbat Morning, About Shabbat

illustration of girl with brown hair wearing apron and mixing something in a bowl. On the counter are items for baking

What do we need to make Challah?

Text reads "The meaning of the word Shabbat". There are three squares. Left: an image of people sitting in chairs and talking. <iddle: an image of two people protesting at a strike. Right: an image of a girl holding a sign with the number 7

Learn more about the meaning of the word Shabbat

Ideas for Use in the Classroom:

During the activity, students become familiar with the diverse ways in which families celebrate Shabbat. Have students share their own families’ traditions.
Have a mock Shabbat meal in class and have students bring in samples of the foods their families eat on Shabbat.
Make Challah together
Use the opportunity to send Shabbat greetings to beloved family members, maybe those they won’t be spending Shabbat with. Using the Jigzi website, each of our students created a Shabbat greeting for their grandparents. We then printed a screenshot and sent them home.

Shabbat Shalom from our students to yours 🙂

For more about The Shabbat Project click here.

*IssieRoots is made possible thanks to the generous support of The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, The Speech and Language Hearing Foundation, and an anonymous donor.

*Explore our other IssieRoots activities by searching for IssieRoots in the search window.

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