The Festival of Nine Nights and Rosh Hashanah

This week we've started reading Halloween books as Genevieve loves all the monsters and pumpkins. We read Spooky Pookie, The Perfect Pumpkin, Shake Dem Halloween Bones, Big Pumpkin, and The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin. Shake Dem Halloween Bones is fun, especially if you are willing to be a little silly and sing with it. It's a Halloween party for fairy tale friends with a fun beat. The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin was also fun. It's a very different read from Goodnight Moon, but by the same author.

We've also talked about some holidays that take place this week. The Festival of the Nine Nights or Navrati is from the 1-10 October this year. This holiday celebrates the motherhood aspect of god and gives thanks for the harvest. Nine different components are celebrated: love, justice, providence of basic necessities, ability to determine the difference between right and wrong, battle against evil, protection against evil, and the treasure of knowledge and mystic powers. During these nine nights of holiday, many people head to the temple to pray. They leave weapons with the image of the goddess so that she might use the weapons to continue to protect the earth. Small children are often introduced to the alphabet for the first time on this holiday.

As such, we have been practicing the alphabet a lot this week. We sang the alphabet song each day in the car and have practiced naming the starting letter of certain words.

This week began the Jewish New Year, with Rosh Hashanah beginning at sunset on October 2. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are used to seek forgiveness from those you have wronged. Prayers tend to be longer during this time of year and a shofar, or a hollowed out ram's horn, is blown during ceremonies. This is also a time to celebrate the past. People visit water with fish in it to cast away their sins. They often eat apples dipped in honey. Yom Kippur is spent in fasting and in the synagogue.

We talked about how "I'm sorry" means we are going to try not to do it again. We played with paper trumpets and other instruments. We noticed how it is more difficult to play wind and brass instruments than it is to play percussion. We also had lots of apple fun. We fed apples and carrots to some rescue animals. We cut an apple open and noted the seeds inside the core. We used our apple halves to paint and noted apple starts with A. We also read The Apple Doll. The book ends with instructions on how to create your own apple doll. We peeled our apple and soaked it in a bowlful of lemon juice with some salt. After soaking for half an hour, we set it on our window sill to slowly dry. Genevieve also helped mom mix up an apple cake, which she has been enjoying.