Classroom Ideas Writing Activities Reading Tasks Using Speech Projects and Research Pair and Group Work Art and Music Multimedia Games Send us your ideas Click here for the Simchat Torah Educators' Guide Writing Activities Judaism is taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times to sell Sukkot. Write 200 words of compelling advertising copy marketing this festival to the world. Present your text as it will appear in the ad, paying attention to layout, fonts and pictures. Read the reasons for the Four Species given below : They correspond to four different types of Jews: Etrog - has taste and smell like the Jew who keeps the Torah and is also essentially a good person. Lulav (palm) - has taste but no smell like the Jew who keeps the Torah but who deep down is not a good person. Hadassim (myrtle) - has smell but no taste like a Jew who is a good person but does not keep the Torah. Aravot (willow) - has no smell and no taste like the Jew who neither keeps the Torah nor is a good person. They represent the important limbs of our bodies uniting to do good: the lulav is the spine, the etrog is the heart, hadassim the eyes and aravot the mouth. Which of these two explanations appeals to you the most and why? Write a humorous dialogue between a Rabbi and a gentile in which the rabbi explains the significance of the many Sukkot customs. Write a newspaper obituary for one of the Ushpizin outlining details of the person's personality and life experiences. Your "do-it-yourself" company has been commissioned by the local synagogue to produce a "How to build your own Sukkah" manual for its congregates. Create a leaflet containing step by step building instructions with diagrams and tips on how to ensure that it's kosher. Include information on where to purchase materials, schach and decorations. There is a Torah requirement to rejoice on Sukkot and a rabbinic one to rejoice during the month of Adar. Compare and contrast these two periods. Which is the most meaningful to you? Sukkot is characterized by the themes of joy, water and trusting in God. Choose one of these themes and answer the following questions: Why is Joy/Water/Trusting in God important on Sukkot? How do we include these ideas in the observance of the festival? Do you think these are meaningful concepts? Give reasons for your answer. Imagine you are a set of Arba Minim. Write an instruction leaflet explaining to your owner how, if properly used, you can enrich his/her Sukkot. Choose the 3 aspects of Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah that are most meaningful to you. Describe them and explain why they inspire you. Reading Tasks Give advanced students extracts from Mishna Sukkah describing different types of sukkot. Students should draw diagrams to illustrate examples of kosher and non kosher sukkot. This idea has been kindly sent in by Chaya Riva Hanovitch, Jewish Studies Co-ordinator at Yeshivah College Primary School, Melbourne, Australia Try our printable classroom quizzes on the Festival of Sukkot and on Kohelet, courtesy of Yeshivat Ohr Somayach. Click to Sukkot Insights and use these in depth Sukkot articles, by educators including Rabbi Berel Wein and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, as stimuli for class discussions or written responses from your students. To enrich your students' experience of Sukkot this year present its themes via texts read on the festival. Here are some you can use: *  Kohelet *  Ushpizin *  The Prayer for the 4 species *  The Torah reading for the first days (Vayikrah 22:26-23:44) *  Extracts from Parshat Vezot Habracha and Bereishit Prepare user-friendly worksheets to take your students step by step through the text, alone or in pairs. Create a multiple-choice questionnaire to test/consolidate your students' knowledge Sukkot. Stories are wonderful for children of all ages. Incorporate A New Dance, a Simchat Torah story from ArtScroll, into your class. Discuss the concept of praying for rain. Do your students think it is important? Maybe they think there are more important things to pray for. Ask your students to compose their own prayer for rain in pairs. Then give your students the real Prayer for Rain to read with guided questions to answer, (the questions should be aimed at explaining certain aspects of the prayer). Finish with a class discussion to see if attitudes towards the prayer have changed. Using Speech Listed below are thought-provoking topics for debate: Why do we need to remember how the Jews lived in the desert? Why should it concern us today? Do you agree with making a blessing over the arba minim? Can we really gain spiritually from the symbolism or is it a childish waste of time and money? One of the themes of Sukkot is placing our trust in God. How should a Jew balance putting his/her faith in God with actively trying to influence the course of our lives? Within this, many faith issues can be discussed. We learn that the arba minim represent 4 different types of Jews. Who are these Jews? Which category would you put yourself into? Which type do you think is the ideal? The Etrog represents the Jew who learns Torah and is a good person whereas the hadassim (myrtle) represents the Jew who is a good person but who does not learn Torah. What is the point of Torah and Mizvot when there are plenty of good people around who don't live by the Torah. Simchat Bet Ha'shoeva - an archaic relic or of meaning today? The above topics can be presented in a variety of ways. Try some of these: Stage a mock court-case with a judge, jury, defendant, prosecutor and accused. This scenario can be used to debate controversial issues. A balloon debate - four people are in an air balloon but there is only enough fuel to transport one of them safely to their destination. Three people must loose their lives. Each person argues why his/her position is so crucial that he/she must be kept alive. The audience vote on the most convincing argument. Give your students a list of Sukkot customs, prayers and themes. Working in small groups, ask them to rate them in descending order of importance. A spokesperson is chosen to justify the choices to the class. Other class members then challenge them. Students prepare speeches to deliver in front of the class on any of the topics above. Play a game of devil's advocate in which one person must argue the complete opposite of what he/she believes. Discuss and debate ideas in pairs or in groups. A spokesperson from each group delivers the ideas to the rest of the class. If you have any great lesson ideas or tips, please send them to the Educators' Guide and we'll add them to this page. 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