Finished the (5773) Pesach Lapbook!

Okay, I  lied.  This is the 5771 lapbook, revisited 2 years later.  But still – come explore it with us: the kids are super-excited at how well it turned out!

We had SOooo much stuff to stick inside this one, and it went SOooo quickly, because I split up the mini-books so that Naomi Rivka did the trickier ones while Gavriel Zev did those that were more basic.

Here’s what you see when you first open it…

Then, you flip back the first insert page (all I had for this lapbook was plain white cardstock and a slightly crumpled file folder – still, I think it looks terrific!) to reveal…

 

This is Gavriel Zev’s seder plate, which I think looks fantastic when it’s opened wide.

Behind the seder plate is his “Can we eat it” booklet, along with Naomi Rivka's Mr. Matza, who explains the symbolism of the three matzahs at the seder.

  

Flipping over the “Mr. Matza” page reveals the “Ten Makkos / Plagues” page, with a song and a fold-out little accordion book showing pictures of every plague.  There’s also a little pyramid counting book, which GZ cut out.

Finally, because there was so much room, I told Naomi Rivka she could decorate the page or write something.  Here’s what she wrote:

Me [Naomi], Gavriel Zev, Sue [that’s her doll, Suzie], and Yosepha [another doll], and of corce, GZ’s many Dolls, wish you a happy Pesach!  For if Moshe didn’t bring us out of Mitzrayim, we would still be slaves! Happy Pesach! [heart] NM!

With all the craziness this year, I was so, SO relieved to have the lapbook ready to print, rather than having to create one from scratch again.  And I knew I’d tried hard to make it as complete as possible, so I didn’t have to worry about any glaring gaps in their knowledge – as long as I covered all the little mini-books, I knew we’d be hitting all the major bases.

If you want to attempt this lapbook (probably in future years, given the late date), I’d recommend accompanying it with this FREE Pesach overview / workbook from chinuch.org.  It’s well-enough written and not overwhelming, and it parallels nicely most of the mini-books included in the lapbook.  Some of the “English” text is in Hebrew (words like chametz, matzah, the seder-plate items and brachot], so you will need some Hebrew literacy, but most terms are explained pretty clearly.  I still have it printed out from last year, but I read through it again with the kids, along with other written materials, while they were working.

All in all, I’m pleased… even though, now that we’re finished, I can no longer justify NOT getting up to wash & put away the dishes!!!