
Using Literature to Build Jewish Values in Your Children
Let's go "Beyond the Book" with
Five Alive
Ages 1.5 - 4
Five Alive is a children’s book with a novel twist, for it associates the Jewish holidays with the five senses. It uniquely uses the sense of tasting, smelling, feeling, seeing and hearing as a way to experience the holidays. This book is a lesson in awareness and to go beyond the book parents should use it as a readiness tool. For example you might ask “What do we taste on Pesach, on Purim, on Chanukah, on Shavuot?” etc.
I see the dancing flames
As all the Yom Tov candles shine
I hear the sound of kiddush,
And I taste a sip of wine.
I smell delicious favorite foods
I feel a special touch-
That’s how I know it’s Yom Tov,
The days I love so much!!
In rhyme and adorable drawings children can reenact the holidays.
I hear the lulav rustle in a soft and gentle way
That’s how I know that Succos is today.
I see the hard, flat matzah
That is so much fun to bite
That’s how I know
That Pesach is tonight! Etc. etc.
When we think of the “eye” that sees and the “ear” that hears, we are referring to Hashem and in
Five Alive the children need an eye, an ear, a touch, a taste, and a smell to fully get in touch with the holidays. And is it not so, that as we get older the memories of Yom Tov are just that - memories of awareness, as we lived in a moment in time - when as children we marched with a flag, an apple, and a lit candle and we heard the singing and saw the dancing and kissed the Torah. We were experiencing the holiday with all our senses.
The greatest of educators always want a “hands on” approach to education, because the use of any one of the five senses builds the synapses in the brain that will remain forever.
To
Go Beyond the Book with
Five Alive is to have in one volume all the components that make the child’s world a reality every Shavuot, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Simchas Torah, and Pesach.I once heard a commercial for coffee -it said that the best part of waking up is “Folgers in your cup”. Not so our culture - the best part of waking up is Yom Tov in our lives!
Buy "Five Alive"!