Trash Cans & Treasure Chests!

For our older children, we wanted to give them a tangible way to understand what is expected from them on the upcoming Holiday of Yom Kippur. 

At first glance...Yom Kippur seems like its not a "kids Holiday"

but at Gan Camarillo, we make sure to make it meaningful and appropriate for our preschoolers!

 

I showed the children these 2 containers with pictures of a trash can and a jewelery box on them.

I asked the children---What do we do with trash?

They all answered we THROW IT AWAY! 

 

 

I then asked them what we put inside a jewelry box?

They all told me things like- special things, treasures, important stuff, things we want to keep.

I explained to them, on Yom Kippur, Hashem wants us to look at all the things we DO and to sort them out! We need to take some things we might have done, and place them in the bin! (so we don't see them/do it again), and we need to take some of the things we did over the past year....and place them in a treasure box! We want to keep them, so we can do it again and again!

 Each child had a turn to pick out a picture from my special box.

The box contained all sorts of pictures from children sharing their toys, to being gentle with little babies, to listening with their ears, to pushing one another.

 

 After showing the picture to their friends, the children had to decide what they would do with what the picture described! Would they throw it in the bin? or keep it in a treasure box?

 I was so proud of our students...who all knew what they should do!