Crafting with colored salt that you can make yourself is so much fun, especially for kids who are more process oriented than expressive. While home-made colored salt poured in layers into recycled jars is certainly pretty, and there are lots of oohs and ahhs as the layers are built, I wanted to give more meaning to this project. So I decided that the layers of sand could most certainly represent the rolling hills of Jerusalem, right? Or they could also represent the hills of sand in the Judean dessert just outside of Jerusalem.
We finished off this project by sketching rows of houses onto our jars to remember Jerusalem, in preparation for the solemn holiday of Tisha B'Av, coming up next week. A dessert scene with palm trees and camels and a procession of travelers on their way to Jerusalem would be great too!
You'll Need:
- table salt
- colored chalk
- plates
- a funnel (or something that one can use as funnel)
- white glue
- a permanent black marker
- recycled jars
How To: Pour salt onto plates and color the salt with chalk by drawing on the plate. After you've colored several colors, start pouring layers of colored salt into your jars. Dont forget to use plain white salt too! When you've filled up the jar, pour a layer of white glue on top in order to prevent the sand from moving, once the glue had dried. Set aside to dry overnight, and if desired, sketch Jerusalem or dessert scenes on your jars, and display.
And if you'd like to teach your kids about the significance of Jerusalem, and the Holy Jewish Temple, the Beis HaMikdash, (that is blatantly absent from so many history books, but certainly represented on google), now is the time!
