Simchat Diaspora At Home
offers individuals and families written guides to creating their own play-based Jewish holiday experiences that include meaningful connections to justice issues and current events. The download of each guide supports our ability to create and share more resources with our community. Thank you!
Each resource guide includes:
Approachable explanations of Jewish holiday traditions that explore different practices across the diaspora designed to offer caregivers insights to explore alongside our children
Art, sensory, and play-based activities that invite kids to connect with Jewish themes and practices and are simple to set up, facilitate, and clean up
Amplification of perspectives on Torah and Jewish teachings from marginalized voices
Prompts to engage kids around tough topics related to current events, and Jewish culture
Book reviews and recommendations
Recommended resources for more in-depth exploration
Available At Home Guides
Updated At Home Guides for all major Jewish holidays will be available for download throughout the year. Join our mailing list to be notified when new guides added! Looking for group learning resources and curriculum? Check out our In Community program.
A guide to observing Erev Shabbat (Shabbat Day) with the whole family. Complete with a magical Shabbat folktale to read aloud, instructions for making a kid-friendly Shabbat Basket that can be used week-after-week, and a hand-illustrated guide to Friday night Shabbat blessings for candlelighting, washing hands, and of course, gathering around juice and challah.
Simchat Diaspora High Holy Day Guides are invitations to explore the themes of the season, with emphasis on ways families can meaningfully connect while attending to the emotional and developmental needs of young children. This Yom Kippur At Home Guide invites your family to connect with ancestors through a Site of Memory and participate in rituals of introspection through a read-aloud and hands-on activity that asks “What do you love about life?”
Each night of Chanukah, after the sun goes down, Jewish people gather with family and friends and light candles on a special candleholder called a menorah or a hanukkiah. Your family is invited to use this Chanukah At Home Guide and the included Candlelighting Ritual Guide to gather around the candles and explore Chanukah traditions from across the diaspora and sensory play for all ages. We are inspired by the shamash, the helper candle on the menorah, to offer stories and prompts for discussion that remind us to “look for the helpers” and to believe that we can each be a helper in our community.
A guide to observing Yom Shabbat (Shabbat Day) with the whole family. Complete with a magical Shabbat folktale to read aloud, a framework for building your family "recipe" for Shabbat joy, and a hand-illustrated guide to Havdalah, the ritual that marks the end of Shabbat and the beginning of a new week.
Simchat Diaspora High Holy Day Guides are invitations to explore the themes of the season, with emphasis on ways families can meaningfully connect while attending to the emotional and developmental needs of young children. The Sukkot At Home Guide is designed to accompany your family through the eight-day festival of Sukkot. The activities and ritual invitations are include approachable ways to connect with the land and people around you, whether or not you have access to a Sukkah or abundant outdoor space.
Tu Bishvat is our invitation to ask ourselves anew each year, How can Jewish texts, rituals and traditions offer us and our kids a pathway to a humble and grounded relationship with the Earth? And how might sharing these rituals within our Jewish communities and with our friends and neighbors invite us into deeper relationship with the Earth and with each other? This Tu Bishvat At Home Guide includes a printable ritual guide for a Tu Bishvat Seder, a story from the Talmud full of trees and time traveling, and an invitation to observe the holiday by making plant essences.
Simchat Diaspora High Holy Day Guides are invitations to explore the themes of the season, with emphasis on ways families can meaningfully connect while attending to the emotional and developmental needs of young children. In this Rosh Hashanah At Home guide we invite your family to embrace a kid-favorite symbol of the season by apple- printing a new family ritual item. We also offer a guide to doing Tashlich, the “casting off” ritual, in a way that draws our attention to not only our inner life and transformation, but how we offer kavod, honor, to the Earth in this land-based ritual.
Simchat Diaspora High Holy Day Guides are invitations to explore the themes of the season, with emphasis on ways families can meaningfully connect while attending to the emotional and developmental needs of young children. The Simchat Torah At Home Guide does not assume that your family is part of a community that has access to a Torah scroll, instead we offer other ways to celebrate and build positive identity around Torah learning and low-pressure way to honor Simchat Torah’s explicit invitation to center simcha, joy.
The download of each At Home Guide supports Simchat Diaspora’s ability to create and share educational resources with our community and to offer subsidized organizational coaching to emerging Jewish learning communities. While the suggested donation for each guide is $36, we welcome you to donate an amount that is meaningful and possible for you. If you would like to support Simchat Diaspora with a larger or smaller gift, you can donate here and email us to receive an At Home Guide.