Parshas Vayechi

Here is a quick 15 second summary of parshas vayechi featuring our puppets available for download.

Click here to download the adorable sefer beraishis puppets.

Our Sefer Shemos puppets are here! Click here to download our beautiful puppets and props for the entire Sefer Shemos!

Click here for a parsha song.

Parsha Summary

Yaakov lived in Mitzrayim for 17 years and was very happy surrounded by all his children. It was coming time for Yaakov to pass away and he wanted to bless his children. He called in Yosef with his sons, Menashe and Efraim. Menashe was the firstborn but Yaakov switched his hands and put his right hand on Efraim’s head because Yehoshua would come from Efraim and bring the Jews into Eretz Yisroel. We demonstrated this whole scene and learned to identify our right and left hands. We’ve been using our "Efraim hand" for Shema and to make a bracha. The right hand is more special so we use it to make a bracha unless you’re a lefty.

We learned what the brachos were. Yaakov blessed Efraim and Menashe that Hashem should watch over them and protect them always. That their children should be as many as the fish, because fish have lots and lots of babies. Yaakov wanted to tell his chidlren when Moshiach is going to come, but then he forgot because Hashem said it wasn’t the time to reveal it. Yaakov asked the shevatim if they believe in Hashem and they all answered "shema yisrael" which means we believe in 1 Hashem. Yaakov was buried in Me’aras Hamachpeila near Leah.

We reviewed the whole Sefer Beraishis. We went through all the parsha pictures and talked about what had happened in each parsha. The children remembered so many details all the way back from Parshas Beraishis! We heard that this week in shul at the end of the parsha we will say together chazak. We completed our own sefer beraishis that we’ve been illustrating every week in class, we made a cover for it and we are very excited to bring it home!

Craft

In our parsha project this week, we created the faces of Efraim and Menashe with different items. We traced our hands and cut them out and attached them with paper fasteners.

Materials needed:

full sheet of paper for background
paper and crayons or colored pencils for tracing hands
scissors
2 circles
various art items to create faces (googley eyes/ stickers/hair/felt etc)
2 paper fasteners

Have the students trace their hands and cut it out. Have them decorate both faces to be Menashe and Efraim. Once it's all prepared, help them place the hands with paper fasteners over the two faces.

Efraim and Menashe Parshas vayechi craft

Parsha Drawing Journal

This week, have the students color the page for Parshat Vayechi and then decorate the cover. They can draw anything they rememeber from Sefer Bereishis. Then you can staple all the pages from Sefer Bereishis into a booklet and send it home!

Every week, we draw a picture of the parsha (I always did it before shabbos party after reviewing the parsha of the week) and send it home at the end of the Chumash. I love that the children get to tell the story of the parsha in their own words. It is remarkable to see how much their handwriting and drawing skills improve from the beginning to the end of the book.