Can you Spare a Spot of Sugar

Family Activities:

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• You might ask your children to flip through the pages and “read” the pictures to you in their own words.  See if together you can discover all the things the illustrator added to the written text. Did you or your children find anything funny? Were there objects that your children did not recognize? You can ask them to point out the pictures that show the ant and the cricket helping one another. Then you can draw your own picture of the ant and the cricket, as you imagine them. Does your ant wear eyeglasses too?
• Go to the ant… consider her ways and be wise (Proverbs 6,6):  Discuss with your children the characteristics of the ant and the cricket in the story. The ant is industrious and plans ahead, while the cricket sings and dances. After reading the story, you can talk about the different traits and tendencies of everyone in your family and note the distinct contribution of each member.
• Who are your neighbors? Do you help one another? After reading the story, you might think of a small act of kindness that you and your children can do for one of your neighbors.  How does it make you feel? Have you, like the ant, ever felt that there are times when “it’s even better to give than to receive”?
• Are you acquainted with Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper? In that version, the ant refuses the grasshopper’s request for food.  You can share the fable with your children and compare it with this story.  Do you like one version more than the other? Why?
• “What goes around, comes around”: Sometimes children feel that family life is not fair, when they are asked to help out and their siblings are not.  You can discuss how the ant responded to the cricket’s repeated requests for ingredients, and ask them how they think she felt after working hard and saving up all week. It is important to point out that in the end, the ant benefited by helping the cricket. This is often the case in families – there are many opportunities to help others and to be helped, each one according to his or her ability and to the circumstances.
• You too can bake a cake for Shabbat! It is fun to work together in the kitchen, and even more fun to share what you made with neighbors and family! You might want to invite some neighbors or friends over to eat your cake and sing songs with you, just like the ant and the cricket in the story.

Recipe for Orange Cake:

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Ingredients:

150 grams butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

Grated rind of two oranges

1 cup squeezed orange juice

2 1/2 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

Powdered sugar for decoration

1. Beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy.
2. Add the beaten eggs, vanilla and orange rind and continue mixing.
3. Add, alternating liquids with solids, the orange juice, flour and baking powder until smooth.
4. Pour the batter into a lightly-greased cake pan and bake at low-medium heat (170 degrees) for 35-45 minutes.
5. When completely cool, dust the cake with powdered sugar.

Bon appetite and shabbat shalom!