Game- On a big cutout of the 10 commandments, label numbers 1-10. Give each
child a paper with a number and corresponding commandment(and Velcro on the back). Call children up 1 by 1 to march up to Mt.
Sinai, and put their commandment in the correct place. Teacher reads it and
child marches back down with a tissue paper flower to "plant" at the base of the
mountain.
Create a board game with 49 spaces (corresponding to the 49 days counted from
Pesach to Shavuot). Write the numbers on each space. Every so often have an
illustration of a Mitzvah (positive commandment/good deed) on a game space along
with the number. Using a spinner or a die children move pawns the appropriate
number of spaces. They must tell what number they've landed on and you can help
them figure out the number patterns - for example: a 2 with a 3 is twenty three!
a 2 with a 4 is twenty four! etc. (They start catching on and get more practice
every time they play). If they land on a Mitzvah space, they must talk about the
Mitzvah. Discuss how the Torah is full of Mitzvot we can do and how the Torah
was given on Shavuot - 49 days after Pesach.
The holiday Shavuot, on which we celebrate receiving the Torah, comes 49
days/seven weeks after Pesach (Passover). These 49 days/7 weeks are counted
daily (called in Hebrew "sefirat HaOmer"). Keep track of the count each day with
your class on a Sefirat HaOmer chart.
Make a large mountain out of oaktag (Because the Torah was given on Mt. Sinai)
with 49 spaces ascending up the mountain. Have seven spaces to a row (because
there are 7 days in a week)and seven rows. Cut out 49
paper flowers. Each day during circle time call upon a different child to put
the next flower on the mountain (use scotch tape or fun tak)and write that day's number on the flower. Start at the bottom of the
mountain and work upward. Have the children count together from 1 each day. The
children with learn number patterns (teens, twenties, thirties and forties). By
the end of the 49 days the mountain will be beautifully adorned with flowers,
just as Har (Mt.) Sinai was beatified with flowers in honor of the Torah!
