Shavuot (The receiving of the 10 Commandments) 5/14/10

This week we focused on the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, comemorating the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. We discussed the many customs associated with this holiday such as: All night learning sessions, eating dairy foods, and decrating ones home with greenery.

Our art project was to create a simple hanging bouquet of paper flowers using coffee filters, paper and pipe cleaners. One participant identified this project as childish and refused to participate, but still stayed for the discussion. Others ignored this comment and painted voraciously because of the coffee filters' ability to diffuse color rapidly. The flowers were created by wrapping painted coffee filters around pipe cleaners and once enough were made for a bouquet, they were taped into a piece of construction paper rolled into a cone shape. A pipe cleaner was attached to the cone so the bouquet could be hung from a door..