Making Rosh HaShanah Cards with Kids

Ellen Zimmerman

Make Jewish new year cards with your kids to send to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends. They'll love 'em! You can try these Handprint Rosh HaShanah Cards, or create cards with guided imagery. If you choose the latter, you can reinforce two key concepts of Rosh HaShanah in card creation:

  • Roundness: round challah, round apples, hope for a round (full) year
  • Sweetness: apples dipped in honey, honey cake, teiglach

Creating Jewish New Year Cards with Young Children

Here are a few ideas for card creation with little kids:

  • Take this blogger's wonderful art idea and apply it to Rosh HaShanah: Just dip paper cups into a dark-colored paint, then press onto a sheet of paper to create a pattern. The circles can be overlapping or not; it's up to the artist. As an added step, let that dry, then use different colors of paint to draw inside the circles.
  • Even toddlers love glue sticks. Cut various shapes from multiple colors of construction paper and stand back as they glue them into highly textured, layered patterns. If they like to draw, too, they can add a special touch to their collages with brightly colored markers. For younger artists, fold an 8½ x 11 sheet of construction in half. This leaves a good-sized 5½ x 8½ card front for gluing and coloring. Older artists are fine with a smaller-size surface.
  • An easy approach that allows even toddlers to make their own creations is to buy a batch of round stickers in various sizes and colors, like the ones sold at office supply stores. Virtually no clean-up required!

Supplying Your Older Artists

For more advanced artists, provide paper (construction paper, photocopy paper in assorted colors) and markers. Ramp it up with stickers and glitter pens, or create collages from magazine photos. Need Rosh HaShanah images to inspire your more independent artists? Classic symbols include the shofar, apples, honey, pomegranates, round challah, and Jewish stars.

Typical New Year Greetings

If your kids are pre-writers, you can help add the wishes. Here are three traditional Rosh Hashanah greetings:

  • Wishing you a sweet, healthy year!
  • May your year be good and sweet.
  • Wishing you and yours a joyous New Year.