Lag Ba'omer Activities, crafts and puppets

Watch the story of Rabbi Shimon in 30 seconds featuring our Lag Ba'omer puppets.

Download our Lag Ba'omer puppets to help you tell the story of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

Story of Rabbi Akiva

We heard the story of Rabbi Akiva. How he didn’t even know the alef beis when he  was 40 years old. His wife, Rochel, encouraged him to learn Torah. One day he saw a rock with a hole in it from constant water dripping on it. He said "if a rock is so hard, and water so soft, but from constant dripping it can create a hole in the rock, then my brain, too, can absorb Torah if I try. It’s never too late to start learning Torah!

Lag Ba'omer and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai

We learned about Lag Ba’omer. We heard the story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. How he had to hide from the Romans in a cave with his son, Rabbi Elazar for 12 years. Hashem made a miracle and a carob tree grew for them to eat, even though normally it takes 70 years to grow. A stream of water sprung up for them to drink from. Rabbi Shimon taught kabbalah and wrote the Zohar.

We learned that Hashem never brought a rainbow when he was alive. We spoke about rainbows and how they come.

Lag Ba'omer activities

Friendship Rainbow

• We made a friendship rainbow. A big rainbow made up of all our handprints! 

Materials needed:

Paint in colors of rainbow

Paintbrush to paint hands with

Large paper, taped to the wall

Smocks!

Paper towels/baby wipes for cleanup

Have the kids put on smocks and push up their sleeves. Working together, create a rainbow with their handprints using each color.

 

Rainbow Painting

• We painted our own rainbows by dipping the tops of pencils in paint and dotting it. 

Materials needed:

Rainbow stencil

Cotton balls

Paint in colors of rainbow

Pencils or q-tips

Lay out each color of the rainbow. Have the children dip the eraser in the paint and dot each section of the rainbow with the appropriate color. When finished, glue cotton balls on the clouds. 

 

• We made a beautiful alef beis chart to hang in our room!

Materials needed:

Alef Beis Chart

Large cardstock paper/ Scrapbook paper

Decorative materials

Letters / ribbon / foam stickers / sticker gems / sequins 

Glue 

Carob tree counting - Pom-pom math activity

• We played a math game where we had to put the right amount of “carob” on the tree using tweezers and pom poms. 

Materials needed:

Trees with different numbers on it or numbers to place on the tree

Black pom-poms (I didn't have so I used yellow)

Tweezers

Place the pom poms in bowls. Have the children use the tweezers to lift the correct amount of pom poms and place them on the corresponding trees.

Lag Ba'omer books:

Lag Ba'omer Songs

This CD available on Mostly Music has a great 6 minute Lag Ba'omer medley - Check it out here.

Rabbi Akiva

TTTO: Oifn prip'chik

Many years ago, a poor shepherd boy

Watched the sheep all day

Akiva didn't even know the alef-beis

Which all of us can say

Rochel, his smart wife gave him good advice

This is what she said:

It's never too late to start learning Torah if you use your head

Rabbi Akiva learned both by day and night

A talmid chocham he became

He had many talmidim who learned from him

And we should do the same

YouTube playlist with songs and stories for Lag Ba'omer