purimstory

The best way to say the Purim story is by having puppets. The standard characters of all five (mordechai esther, haman, vashti and achashveirosh) are really good. I colored them and laminated them. Put pospsicle sticks and used this as my puppets. The kids loved it. Make a simple castle out of oaktag and have the children make windows (tell them how a castle has many windows). Put velcro there and leave the puppets there so the children can play with the story during free play.
A good idea to try is to have the children color one of each of these puppets an you put it on a popsicle stick. This enables them to do at home, what you have been doing at circle time and in school.
The second thing i did to teach them the story was made a large book out of oaktag, (making one oaktag folded as four pages of_________ _______ what do you see. It is a simple book where the is a picture of something on a page ex: Esther Esther what do you see? I see Mordechai looking at me. He would only bow to hashem you see.
For pictures and the words of the book click here

To teach them just a little bit where this story takes place: Take them on an airplane (:)) and make believe you land in shushan. get a picture of persian rugs and show them that it is from shushan/persia town. You can even make your own class one. It's about the size of big color paper. I have a copy (the children water pain it. Older kids can color it and we laminated it, back to back and added yarn as fringes. We used this as the doormat to our classroom and the children are excited to come in each day. For extended work..you can bring in different size boxes and have the children paint it. Cut out doors and have them as the buildings in shushan.

----To act out the king....make crowns which are very easily made our oaktag with the zigzag on the top. Have the children put on sequins and tell them how kings have many precious stones. You can even add them to your castle (see introduction) for where the king lives.
------You can also make necklaces at this point for jewelry. (either beaded or cherio necklaces) Another cute idea is to trace their hands and then let them cut out from magazines rings/jewelery to put on.
------Game to play: Pin the crown on king achashveiros. or pimple on vashti..This game works really nicely with children no matter how small.
------Bulliten Board Idea: Trace two kids. One is for Achashveirosh and one for Esther. Give the kids cut up material. they can cover the body. Give them hair, eyes.... They can creat real live characters for your bulliten board
------When teaching about Achashveirosh picking a queeen. Sit on a chair, put on a crown and have each child come before you and tell you why you should pick them. Better for older children.

This is a story the children like as soon as they start associating haman as the bad guy and mordechai as the vice versa. The song clipotty coppity is a great chant to teach with it. (see songs page) Make a horse head and trace it through the back so you can have the two sides of a head. Staple them half way. Have the children paint or color it and then stuff it. Add a paper towel roll and have fun galloping through school!

Megilla Idea: When you make a set of puppets, just velcro them to a roll of paper or felt and roll it up. This is a megillah that kids can play with, act out the story by taking off the pupets, or just read it as they do in shul!