Celebrating Shavuot the Fun, Delicious, Educational, and Frugal Way

I'm so inspired by the Creative Jewish Mom.  She's committed to teaching her kids about Judaism in a fun way.  Her crafts are always beautiful, kid-friendly, and most of the time are super-frugal to boot.   She made an incredible cake for Shavuot and it made me think of how I could do something similar and hands-on with my two big guys.

Shavuot is a great holiday for teaching little kids because the concept is simple (it's the day that God gave us the Torah) and the traditions for celebration pretty much revolve around eating dairy foods, which means excellent desserts are possible.

This year, to celebrate Shavuot, we made some cupcakes.

(Head on over to our family blog to read the full project explanation.)

The cupcake mix cost $.88.

 

(We already had the food coloring and muffin cups.)

The frosting (that included sprinkles) cost $1.50.

 

The chocolate wafers were (a completely riduculous) $1.69 - but worth it.

Total cost of the project was $4.07. 

Not too shabby considering The Frugal Ima is 3 weeks post-partum and kind of a sleep-deprived, cranky disaster. It was such a success that I'm motivated to think of other fun projects to teach my kids about the holidays, and hopefully supply them with some awesome childhood memories to boot.

By creating frugal ways to teach about and celebrate holidays, I'm hoping to do a few things:

• begin family traditions that are do-able each year, regardless of the financial circumstances;
• put the lessons of the holiday in the forefront, instead of the monetary considerations;
• and establish that Judaism and its celebrations are kid-accessible and friendly - who cares if my kids ruin cupcakes that only cost $4?

I'd love to hear about your family's holiday traditions and their frugal aspects.  What are you doing to celebrate this Spring?