Special Day: Exodus!

Today was Special Day: Exodus! Every session there is a special day that has a theme that tries to tie in education with fun activities. This summer we have been incorporating bible stories into a lot of our activities, so special day Exodus was only fitting! When the chanichim woke up today they thought it was still a normal day because special day was not broken until after breakfast. Special Day was broken with a skit showing Moses and an Egyptian fighting. The chanichim were then instructed to go to the barn (refet) to see a movie that the staff (tzevet) made! 

Building pyramids in Egypt!

After the movie the plot of the day was revealed. The entire day was devoted to Moses’ journey from his time in Egypt, to leading the Hebrews out of slavery. In the morning there was a carnival set up in the parking lot. The carnival’s purpose was to get to know the land of Egypt before Moses freed the Hebrews. Some of the stations at the carnival were basket weaving, building pyramids, riding around on Pharaoh’s caravan, playing in the creek and of course a slip n’ slide.

After we got to know the land of Egypt a little better, the next skit was Moses discovering the burning bush! Of course it wasn’t a real burning bush, but one of our staff members (tzevet) performed poi with fire and put a show on for the machaneh. During this skit the burning bush instructed Moses to go back to the Pharaoh and to ask him to let the Hebrews go. 

The next activity of the day was recreating the 10 plagues. The chanichim were split into teams and they each were given a plague that they were going to be able to dumb on a tzevet member. For example, one of the plagues that was dumped on a tzevet member’s head were wild beasts. The wild beasts we used were feathers and syrup. The chanichim had a blast dumping various things on their counselors’ (madrichim) heads.

Finally Pharaoh let us go and we all went to lunch! Lunch was a special BBQ outside in Hyde Park with homemade french fries! The next step to leaving Egypt was of course crossing the Red Sea! This was a pool party and the chanichim and madrichim had a great time cooling off in the pool. 

The afternoon was focused on escaping from the desert with various challenges such as a maze, dodgeball and training to fight Egyptians. The chanichim’s favorite station was the snack (kibud) station. We had a Matzo bar with all different spreads to put on the Matzo! 

Dinner tonight will be a passover seder at Zydie and Bubbie’s house! Dinner will be set up as a Dinner Theater and there will be an elevated table with madrichim pretending to be a family at a seder. 

After dinner we will travel back in time again to when Moses receives the 10 commandments. This will take place on the ropes course and Moses will act out the scene on the zip line! When he receives the 10 commandments he will jump off the zip line and everyone will go to the Golden Calf Bash! The Golden Calf Bash will be the party (messibah) at the end of the day and there will be 8 golden calf pinatas spread across the party that the chanichim can smash. 

We’ve had a busy day but all of the chanichim are having so much fun! Make sure to check out all of pictures from today!