A Fantastical and Magical Intersession!

After saying farewell to all of our friends from Machzor Rishon (First Session) on Sunday, we began a fantastical and magical INTERSESSION program for all of our full-summer chanichim (campers)! We love celebrating our full-summer chanichim, and Intersession is packed-full of fun, special, silly programming!

On Sunday afternoon, the kids rotated through a variety of special peulot (activities) planned by our senior staff.  We brought in a bunch of inflatable bounce-houses for the kids to play in.  Pamela (our Program Director) ran a “silent disco”, in which the kids each got a pair of headphones so they could hear the dance play-list; everyone was hearing the same music and dancing together… but because everyone was wearing headphones, the actual dance-party was completely silent!  I ran a “snackventure” that was basically candy Battleship.  I created a grid numbered aleph to yud on one side and one to ten on the other.  The kids had to answer trivia; if they got an answer right, they could choose a square on the board, trying to discover the locations of my secret candy caravans.  If they “sunk” one of my candy caravans, they got the candy!  We also had tie-dying, other art projects, singing, and lots of other fun stuff!

On Sunday night we kicked off our second (annual?) “Intersession Cup” competition between the edot!  That night and throughout Monday, the edot competed in a series of challenges and games, trying to unlock special prizes!  Adat ha-Nivonim helped launch the competition with Sunday night’s “NIV it to Win it” peulah, in which the kvutzot (groups) competed against representatives from NIV in trivia and wacky challenges (transferring cereal from one bowl to another using only pipe-cleaners; creating a Ramah logo out of paper clips, racing to solve a Rubik’s cube, and more).

Monday morning began with lots of smiles as we once again served waffles and ice-cream for aruchat boker (breakfast) — an intersession favorite!

On Monday morning, the edot competed in “The Infinity Peulah” — the kids had to locate six “Infinity Stones” and complete the challenges found within.  One of the challenges was to pose for a superhero movie poster. Here are a few of the creative results:

The next competition was a photo scavenger hunt modeled after Simanei HaSeder!  For each step of the Passover Seder, I challenged the kvutzot to capture a silly (and somewhat tangentially-related) photo.  For Kadesh, for example, the kids had to capture a t’fillah moment:

For Shulchan Orech, the kids had to show their appreciation for Sean Carey, our hard-working Chef Manager who oversees all of the incredibly delicious food we get to eat every day:

For Hallel, the kids had to praise Hashem while in outer space.  I loved this creative solution:

It’s been an incredible Intersession.  Please be sure to check out our photo galleries for lots of photos.  We can’t wait to welcome all of our Machzor Sheinei (Second Session) friends today!!