Avraham's Tent, Tent Diorama, Colourful Tree (Parshas Vayeira)

Avraham's Tent

In this week's Torah portion, Parshas Veyeira, we learn about Avraham & Sara's incredible hachnosos orchim, being kind and hospitable to guests.  His tent had four openings so that he could see when people were travelling from any direction, so he could offer assistance to them.













Supplies:

• A square or rectangular table
• 1 large table cloth or flat sheet or 2 medium ones
• 4 clips (can be office foldback clips or food storage clips, etc)
  

Drape a sheet over your table.  Clip the middle of each side up to create an opening.  Then enjoy hours of pretend play using the structure as a tent.  My children enjoyed baking goods in their play kitchen and bringing them to the tent, where they proceeded to offer the goods to the many (pretend) people who passed by.  They even helped them say the brachos (blessings) on the food.

Tent Diorama

We also made the scene from this week's parsha in 3-D.

Supplies:

• 1 sheet of cardstock paper
• 1 paper or styrofoam bowl
• paint or markers 
• empty toilet paper roll
• green construction paper
• glue
• scissors
  
• sand or glitter
  
  

Take a disposable bowl and cut four openings in it to represent the four entrances to Avraham's tent.  Colour or paint the bowl and glue it onto the cardstock paper.  Then, take a toilet paper roll and glue a green rectangular piece of construction paper at the top.  Cut strips on the green paper to make a fringe from the leaves on the tree.  Cut four 1cm slits at the bottom of the toilet paper roll and bend outwards so you can glue it down.  Spread glue onto the cardstock sheet and sprinkle sand or glitter onto it (not pictured in our project, as it was done after uploading the photo).

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A Colourful Tree
We learned that 3 angels who were in the form of people were sitting under a tree when Avraham approached them offering food and drink.  This project is perfect for the parsha, and has great timing as it's a wonderful opportunity for children to learn about the fall season and the change of colours on the leaves.

Supplies:

• 1 sheet of cardstock paper
• red, orange, yellow, green paint
• some twigs or branches
• green tissue paper, streamer, or construction paper
  

Break or cut the twigs into one long piece to be the trunk and 6 smaller pieces to be the branches.  Glue them on and let dry for several hours.  Glue a strip of green paper along the bottom and you can cut slits to create a fringe.  Using your fingers, make dots all around the branches in a variety of colours.  Both my 2 and 4 year old children equally enjoyed this project.  We talked about why leaves change colours and what happens to them in each of the seasons.  We had a great time walking throughout our neighbourhood finding trees that had all the different colours of leaves that we painted