Ideas for families for meaningful Shabbos

amother

Sun, Aug 16 2020, 6:43 am

I am raising a large brood out of town. We have very few friends locally and kids are often bored. Any ideas for making Shabbos more inspiring and enjoyable?
Coronavirus has limited us. We used to have tehillim groups, bnos, lots of company.... Crying

PinkFridge

Sun, Aug 16 2020, 7:57 am

Games, treats, will families "mish" I.e. play outside? Are playgrounds open.
If I were going through this with little kids and I could spare the $ I'd subscribe to The Circle magazine, buy new games and toys, or extra sets of toys we already have, etc.
I know this isn't meaningful like Tehillim (you can still say it yourself. Maybe complete it over the month instead of weekly, or whatever) but the idea is to make Shabbos happy and pleasant so they'll have great associations.

amother

Periwinkle

Sun, Aug 16 2020, 8:07 am

We used to do mishnayos baal peh time and reward was shabbos party treats. It was such pleasure to test them every few lines.
Now they're older so we do shabbos party after 20 minutes of learning (less for preschool age kids).
When corona was serious here we made our own tehillim club, everyone sat together on the couch and said a few kapitlach and then took on the next few available once they were done. We finished the entire tehillim this way in less than 30 minutes!
I also subscribed to the circle magazine and bought some new books they enjoyed.
How about splitting into groups and making plays or drama games? Kids love that.

amother

Turquoise

Sun, Aug 16 2020, 9:00 am

Book swap with another family, subscribe to Ami magazine (I think it’s the most interesting one, personally, and the kids’ section Aim is also good). Buy special nosh. Buy a new board game like Rummikub. Have a Parsha quiz from a book like “My First Parsha Reader” and every time someone gets a point it can be redeemed for a candy. Make challah with your kids before Shabbos. Make dips. Buy anew kind of herring (if you have takeout nearby). Buy lots of ices. Order Judaica books online if you can afford. Get library books if you can figure out how the library is operating.

Tzippy323

Sun, Aug 16 2020, 10:15 am

Start on Sunday. Pick a topic, I.e. foods that have gematria of 7, ( using mispar katan if necessary). The person who comes up with it, I.e.דג, writes it on a slip of paper with their name, folds it over and puts it in a bowl. On Wednesday night, everyone crowds around and you read them out. The person who identified the food gets to prepare it for Shabbos. If two come up with the same, they can prepare it two different ways. Take the parsha, and have everyone come up with a name, number, event, etc. that can be related to a past parsha. They must be able to state which parsha it is in. On long Shabbos afternoons, try this game on the dining room table. Someone sets out a trail of candies on the dining room table. Take a clean ball, and sitting around the table the ball must be rolled from person to person without hitting the candies. If you hit one, it must be given away to someone else. If you make a successful pass you get to eat any candy. It gets easier and easier until there are no candies left. Have fun.