Bible Day

Each year, the 4th grade class puts on Bible Day. They started a month ago by choosing a person from the Bible to research and write a report about. Carly was Mary of Bethany {not to be confused with Mary Magdalene which apparently there is some confusion even among Bible scholars, who knew}. They also are part of a small group that makes a display about different topics. Carly's group was about housing and transportation.

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On the morning of Bible Day, they come in costume and set up their displays in the gym. Throughout the morning, the rest of the kids - preschool-6th grade - come through and the groups give little 5 minutes talks about who they are and about their display.

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I chose to help with the afternoon activities and went to work, so I missed seeing the displays set up and the kids giving their little presentations. Other mom's gave me feedback and several have said that they have some pictures of Carly so I'm hoping I can add a couple of those later. The one dad that I know that was there said "it was mass chaos"!

After lunch, the 4th grade had 4 classroom centers to rotate through. Each center was about something to do with the Jewish religion including the Star of David, Hanakkah, a dreidel, Bible Trivia, and a Passover Seders meal. I'm thinking the premise behind this is to be better educated about the Jewish religion since there is so much in their Bible studies.

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In the first classroom they learned a little about the Star of David and then followed directions to do a paper folding and cutting. You can see Carly's on her desk below. I thought it was a neat art idea.

In the next classroom they played Bible baseball. It was a trivia game with questions about things they have been learning in Bible class. There were 5 groups and it was funny to see how they all began adapting the game as they played. The other moms and I decided as long as they were answering questions and not fighting, we did not care what baseball rules they used!

Back in Carly's room, they listened to a book about Hanukkah.

They made dreidels and learned to play the game.

Their Bible teacher led their center about a Passover Seder meal. They learned it is a Jewish family ritual used to retell the story of Exodus. They learned about the symbolism of 4 cups of wine {to bring, to deliver, to redeem and to take}, the bitter herbs {harshness of their slavery}, the charoset {brick and morter used to build house by the slaves}, and matza bread.

They learned that they did not like pure horseradish!