Purim Party! ~Homeschool Co-op

While we are not Jewish, we find that Purim is a cause for Christians to celebrate too! Providentially, God chose Jesus Christ to be born through the Jewish line. The prophets foretold of a coming Savior but as time passed an enemy of the Jews rose up. Haman's plot, if successful, would have killed all of the Jews. If that happened, how would we have Jesus Christ (Yeshua) our Savior?!! God was working behind the scenes and the Jewish people were saved! It's a cause for celebration because we Christians (having once been Gentiles) are saved by Yeshua and have been grafted onto the Cultivated Olive Tree (The House of Israel)!!

I baked some Hamentaschen cookies ahead of time. These are so delicious and you can click here for the recipe I used. Hamaentaschen is a Yiddish word for "Haman's Hat". Eating these cookies symbolizes Haman's defeat!

Here they are displayed in a lovely Persian Palace Fashion:

One of the mothers read "The Story of Queen Esther"
by
Jenny Koralek
The children booed and stomped when Haman's name was read.

The kids played some carnival games. I couldn't find any traditional games that were/are played so we went with our own twist of these games:

Purim Party Race Game

We did four lanes. These are the names I chose:
1) King's Lane; 2) Hamentaschen Lane; 3) Queen's Lane; 4) Palace Lane

I forgot the die! They were supposed to roll die to move within the squares. My resourceful husband used some masking tape with numbers written on them and taped them to some "poker" chips. It got the job done. Each child won a colorful balloon. :)

Purim Penny Toss Game

Toss for the prize you want!

We made a few extra circles for the number of kids that came to the party. This way the last kid wasn't stuck with the last item. Micheal's Craft Store had fun choices for prizes found within a dollar range.

• The kids formed a single file line (littlest ones went first).
• They could stand on any of the four sides at any time.
• Preschool kids could stand at the first line (made by tape) to toss their pennies. The older kids had to stand at the second line (made by tape) to toss their pennies.
• We had one child go at a time so that it'd be easy to keep track of whose penny landed where.
• One prize per child.
• Each child had six pennies to toss. *Sometimes more than one circle ended up with a penny in it! If this happened, they could choose only one item from among them for their prize.
• The child whose turn is finished picks up the pennies and hands them to the next child in line.

 Dining in Persian Palace Fashion

Rich, vibrant colors and sparkling, ornate decorations welcomed everyone into Persian Palace Fine Dining (potluck style).  :) It was a lot of fun to see the kids dressed up in their costumes, families enjoying fellowship and all celebrating together the historical account found in the book of Esther. 

Blessings!

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