H2O! Vaera

The plot keeps coming fast! Parashat Vaera has the four promises of redemption and the first seven of the ten plagues. Thanks to wonderful educators at Pesach time, my children can easily name and share a little about each plague.
"Which is your favorite plague?" Gabi asked me.
"Umm, I don't have a favorite. When something bad happens to someone else, even if we don't like the person, we can't be happy." I replied. I explained how when we recite the plagues at the seder, at the utterance of each one we remove a drop of wine. The drop is to lessen our happiness of seder night for their suffering.
"Okay, but which do you like the most?" Cohava was relentless.
"Frogs and darkness."
"Is that because no one got hurt during them?" she asked.
"Also in blood no one was hurt," Gabi piped up.
"Gabi, it is true that it didn't hurt the Egyptian's skin like lice or boils, and they didn't die suddenly like the last plague, but not having water is terrible," I explained.
"Cuz you could get duh-hydrated?" Gabi queried.

So in honor of this week's parasha we are learning about the importance of water. There are countless projects that one could do on this parasha, so if you are looking for something like frog puppets (super fun) keep searching.

We talked about our bodies needing water. Using a water bottle, we looked at how if the bottle were our bodies it would have to be 1/2 to 2/3 full for us to be alive. (The sticker on the top is a face).

We are going to work on drinking more water every day.

 Then we talked about how all life forms need water and that no food can be produced without water.{Gabi insists candy can}.
To show how plants need water and not blood, we did the old celery experiment. Two stalks, one in water, the other in water + red food dye. [Ruti also insisted on one AbbyCaddaby cup of celery]. Hopefully the experiment will produce results.

 Next I brought out a Pharoh doll and we enjoyed playing with him and water.

(Cohava has an angry face to match her Pharoh voice)

 The eleventh plague: being chewed on by a baby. Pharoh never gets a break!

 The girls are also doing some online learning about water at websites like:

http://www.watereducation.org/doc.asp?id=1022
http://www.discoverwater.org
http://www.epa.gov/students/games.html

Cohava also loves fun facts so here are some fun water facts:

Water is made up of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen. Its chemical formula is H2O. Water has three different states, liquid, solid and gas. The word water usually refers to water in its liquid state. The solid state of water is known as ice while the gas state of water is known as steam or water vapor. Water covers around 70% of the Earth’s surface. The three largest oceans on Earth are the Pacific Ocean (largest), the Atlantic Ocean (second largest) and the Indian Ocean (third largest). More ocean facts. The longest river in the world is the Nile River, it reaches 6650 kilometers in length (4132 miles). <-----Thats a LOT of blood!!! The second longest river in the world is the Amazon River, it reaches 6400 kilometres (4000 miles) in length. The longest river in the USA is the Missouri River. At around 2,340 miles (3,770 km) in length it is slightly longer than the Mississippi River (2,320 miles). The two combine to form the longest river system in North America. Pure water has no smell and no taste, it also has a pH level around 7. Water expands as it cools from 4 °C to 0 °C (above 4 °C it does the opposite). In freezing conditions, water has been known to burst water pipes as it freezes to ice. We will probably talk about water conservation and find ways to save water around the house and to fight water pollution.  Enjoy and appreciate your water! Shabbat Shalom!