JTN - Jewish TV Network

If you are not familiar with the online website, Jewishtvnetwork.com during Chol HaMoed Passover would be a great time to check it out with your children.  There's a "kidz" section with videos, including a Passover special where a family of puppets travels back in time and becomes enslaved in Egypt.  Not cloying and preachy.

The website also has features for adults, with sections on lifestyles, entertainment, cooking, spirituality, etc.  Check it out and spend some time visiting, reading stories, watching videos with the likes of Elie Wiesel and Sarah Silverman, getting al the latest Israeli news, as well as a video blog by Rabbi David Wolpe.

Passover Shopping Guide: Keeping Kids Entertained at the Seder

Uh-oh! With one week to go until Passover you might be wondering how to keep the kids occupied. Here are a few suggestions and most places will deliver withing a day or two.

If getting the kids through dinner on a regular night is hard, Passover dinner is a whole different beast. The seder is long, you can see and smell the food but you aren’t supposed to eat it yet, and all the adults are drinking too much wine. Enter these invaluable little items, all Passover-approved and ready to keep the kids occupied.

1. Inflatable Pharaoh Punching Bag Pack of 3 ($27.50) Help them get out all that ancient frustration (and give their siblings a break from torment).

2. Soft Seder Set in Reusable Pouch ($18) A seven-piece plush seder set for your toddler to play with, snuggle with, and drool on as they wish.

3. Passover Coloring Placemats with Crayons ($8.95) To help keep kids content, creative, and in one place.

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Kosher for Kids Games Websites for Passover

Want to keep your little ones occupied while learning all about Passover?  Torah Tots website has loads of online games and activities for children of all ages.

 

Passover Guide for Kids

Start off with a house. Minus the Chametz. Add Matzah, wine, family members and what do you get? A Passover Seder of course!

Passover begins the evening of Monday, March 25th.

Kids: YOU play the most important role! That’s right. Every year when we retell the story of our Freedom from Egypt, we begin with the children’s questions and the story is told as an answer!

We sit down to a festive meal and do lots of different things that aren’t generally done – all to make you kids excited and curious about this wonderful Holiday!

So be prepared! Read the complete story of Passover, follow the How-To guide, surprise your family with tons of cool facts, and ask lots and lots of questions!

For My Son on the Autistic Spectrum, Where Does He Fit into the Jewish Community?

I watch my 5-year-old at Jr. Congregation on Shabbat, and I am amazed. Here, in a small room with children, songs, and a teacher he knows and loves, he is comfortable and in his element. He participates, and more than that, he wants to be a leader, a teacher, and a student. He runs onto the bimah in the sanctuary for Adon Olam, and he thinks he’s leading the congregation.

Witnessing my son’s emphatic participation is huge. He was first diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum at 2 years old. Thanks to my husband and sisters, who insisted he be evaluated on the early side, he has benefited from four years of intensive therapy with dedicated and talented therapists and teachers and has made astounding strides.

Still, what comes easy for his peers (social and play skills, trying new things, transitioning activities, appropriately expressing and tempering emotions) is difficult for my son. For example, he rarely initiates play and conversation with children his age, preferring to talk to his teachers or other adults in detail about topics other 5-year-olds generally do not find interesting, like geography and maps. He craves predictability, and is often anxious about new things, wanting to see in advance pictures or videos of places we are going to or things we are doing. He still struggles with sudden changes in his schedule.

Something that is not difficult for him? Being Jewish. Like many children on the spectrum, my son has developed strong interests in certain things–Judaism being one of them.

I did not worry about his place in the Jewish community when he was a toddler. But now, as he gets older and social demands and expectations increase alongside his interest in all things Jewish, I am anxious about what the future holds for him and what he wants to learn–where does he and other children with different learning needs fit in when it comes to our Jewish community?

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A Pirate Purim Party

Hi Everyone! I’m so excited for purim! It is my favorite holiday. I remember as a kid rushing around with my mom to get all the fun items for our family mishloach manot. My mom always came up with a poem, theme, or found a cute container. All these years later I’m still doing the same thing.

Every year I try to figure out what my kids will be interested in. Over the years we’ve done Pinkalicious, Dr. Seuss, dogs, and the list goes on and on. This year my kids decided they wanted to be Jake and the Never Land Pirates. I figured that would be easy. Get them all pirate costumes and we’ll do some sort of treasure hunt. As I started to plan I decided to take it one step further. The Usdan Family became the Shushan Pirates!

We’ve had so much planning and decorating. The kids helped me design a treasure map and goblets and find all the items for our treasure box, while I’ve been doing all the behind the scenes. Purim day we will drop off the treasure maps in their bottles to all our friends and they will use it to come to our house to pick up their treasure. I filled the treasure box with lots of gold coins and gold bars and of course triangle shaped Hamantashen.

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How Facebook Helped Me Cope with My “Mommy Fail"

“Tonight I failed my baby daughter.”

This was my status update on the night of November 7, 2012. I was sitting on my couch, feeling like the Worst Parent in the World. My 1-year-old twins were sleeping peacefully in the nursery. My husband had gone to bed, too, but I was wide awake, replaying the incident over and over in my head, trying to figure out how I had allowed myself to commit this lapse of good judgment. I normally reserved Facebook updates for cute pictures of my son and daughter, or of the Food Network recipes I was so proud of myself for successfully replicating, but tonight was different. It was a plea: Let me know I’m not the only one.

For the first year of the twins’ lives, I went everywhere and did everything that moms with just one baby did, in part to prove to myself that I wouldn't become one of those women who never showered or left the house all day. There I was, in the cute coffee shop, managing to feed the two of them at once (while feeding myself). I was there in the baby boot-camp class, ready to bench press my two oven roasters. We always arrived on time, while many mamas of one stood at the door pleading with the instructor to let them in 15 minutes late. As a family, we took field trips, flew on a plane, and dined in restaurants. There was nary a curb or narrow doorway that could hold me back, even as I pushed an increasingly heavy double-wide stroller.

People commended me for “just getting out of the house.” Sure, staying home seemed like the easier option but instinctively I knew that if I didn't get out every day I’d become a harried, sweat-pant wearing shut-in. Even though many women do what I do, I felt like a mommy badass–in other words, invincible.

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