Toldot

Parsha: Toldot

A. Story:

In last week’s parsha, we learned about Rivka and Yitzhak, who got married. In this week’s parsha, parsha Toldot, Rivka and Yitzhak gave birth to TWO boys- Esav and Yaacov. They were twin brothers. This week’s parsha tells the story about these two brothers, who don’t always get along (if you want, can add: they fight sometimes and they don’t share their toys etc.)

( The story line about Yaakov deceiving Yitzchak is a little confusing so I did not want to focus on that aspect. However, you could talk about the differences between Yaakov and Eisav’s appearance: Eisav had red hair and his arms were very hairy. Yaakov’s arms were very smooth. I know that some groups have twins so feel free to use them as examples: how are they the same or different etc?)

Bottom line: the brothers were not nice to each other and we are going to practice how to be nice to our friends, family and siblings etc….

B. Activity:

1. Kindergarten:
1. First get their minds thinking: I want everyone to think of one way you can help out at home? Go around and listen to what the children have to say. If they seem as though they are getting bored allow for one or two to give an example.
2. Scenario: pick two kids (try and get the kids who probably need to be active at this point) and give them a dinosaur- or any toy that you have noticed the kids fight over to play with. Have them stand in front of your small group and tell them that we are going to play “Freeze Drama”. YOU MAY WANT TO HAVE SOME LEADERS DEMONSTRATE INSTEAD AND HAVE THE CHILDREN TELL YOU WHAT YOU ARE DOING WRONG AND THEN ASK THEM HOW TO RECTIFY THE SITUATION.
3. Rules of Freeze Drama: the children are going to have to pretend to fight for the toy. Space them a few feet away- enforce the no touching rule as we don’t want kids to get hurt. They are not allowed to hit each other, hurt the other person etc… When the leader says Freeze the children must stop where they are- freeze in motion. We just want the children to have a chance to do some role playing and be a part of the program.

At this point, ask the rest of the group: who knows something that one could do to make this a nice situation; what can X or Y do to change their positions etc. Then, pick that person and have him/her replace one of the original two performers. Have them take the exact same position as the original performer and allow them to have a chance to fix the problem- just by changing the position. (OR have them tell one of the actors how to move his body).

Then, call freeze. Ask the group, who can think of something they can say to fix the problem. Make sure they don’t tell you what it is- allow them to say the nice thing when they replace one of the “actors”.

Then discuss. There are many times –at home, at school- when we want to play with something and we cannot because someone else is already playing with that.

Ask them if this happens to them, at home with siblings, at school with friends? How does it make you feel? When these things happen, it can make us very angry, frustrated etc.

Sometimes we scream and sometimes we hit but we know that that is not always the best thing to do because it can really hurt our friends/siblings. And when we scream, we aren’t speaking nicely so sibling/parents/friends cannot understand you. So what can we do to make the situation better: don’t hit and scream and speak nicely and say “ can I have a turn when you are done” or “that really made me mad when you took that toy away from me” ( bc there are times when kids hit bc someone took something from them etc..)

2. Nursery and Pre-K:
1. can you think of something nice you did this week- at school or home?
2. Scenario: Molly and Jenny loved going to school. One day, during play time, Jenny was playing with a baby doll. Suddenly, Molly came over and grabbed the doll from Jenny and Jenny started to cry.

- questions:

a. did Molly do a nice thing?

b. Why is Jenny crying?

c. What could Molly do the next time? ( “When you are done playing with that doll, can I have a turn”- or something to that effect)

- Continue to make as many scenarios as necessary. Maybe use a scenario that happened during groups etc.

- If you want, feel free to modify the Kindergarten activity by having the parents/older siblings act out scenarios and having the children tell you if what you are doing is a good choice or a bad choice. Feel free to do activities where the leaders are making good choices too!!