Question: How do you make a lulav shake?

Answer: Take three scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream, add milk and blend. Pour into a tall class and garnish with a stalk of celery and a wedge of lemon. That’s how to make a lulav shake — courtesy of www.templeisaiah.net/rabbismessages/

fromtherabbi0110.html.

OK, now that I’ve got your attention, let’s look at some Sukkot sites for kids.

First about the holiday itself. Children can learn about the holiday — and how to really make their lulav shake — at several sites written just for them such as Virtual Jerusalem Holidays, http://207.168.91.4/

vjholidays/sukkot/kids.htm, and TorahTots, www.torahtots.com/holidays/sukkot/sukkot.htm. Teachers will appreciate the holiday backgrounders and activities provided by the Jewish Agency for Israel’s site, www.jafi.org.il/education/festivls. Once you know it all, match your wits against the Sukkot IQ quiz at http://makeashorterlink.com/?G13B22AF5. This clever test doesn’t wait until you’ve completed all 16 questions to tell you how you’re doing. It praises when you choose correctly and seems to take just a bit too much pleasure taunting you when you slip up.

If your kids have access to a sukkah, here are some decorating ideas for them. Instead of stringing up yet another paper chain, follow the instructions at VJ Holidays, http://207.168.91.4/vjholidays/sukkot/decor.htm, to create a harvest-time “food chain” by using cranberries, crabapples, popcorn, peppers, onions and small eggplants. The Shema Yisrael Torah Network, www.shemayisrael.co.il/yomtov/sukkot/skpages.htm, has Sukkot-related drawings that can be printed out and colored in. These are traditional pictures showing the construction of a sukkah and men and boys shaking the lulav and etrog. You can download a page from the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Kids’ Corner site, http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/kids/egalpos/imgthree.shtml, where you’ll find a young woman shaking her lulav.

How many board games have you ever played that call for a die, a copy of a Jewish Bible and access to your pantry? That’s what you’ll need to play the ingenious Kitchen Table Harvest Game at http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/kids/together/sukkot. This game, which you can print out and play in your sukkah, has biblical verses on the board referring to foods. For example, if you happen to land on the square that says “Proverbs 15:17,” look up the verse and you’ll find the quotation: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Then go to your kitchen and look for some herbs — or if applicable, an ox. The first person to collect 10 food items is the winner.

Is there someone you’d like to get in touch with this holiday but have left it to the last minute? No problem, if you send him or her a holiday e-card from www.holidays.net/sukkot/cards.htm. Choose from eight different online cards that you can personalize with your own message. Your e-card can even include Sukkot-appropriate songs such as “Ma Tovu (How Goodly are Thy Tents)” and “Shibolet Basadeh (The Sheaf in the Field).” Although I did like this site, it did seem to spawn a lot of pop-up ads on my browser. If that annoys you, stay away.

It might be a few years before your kids are ready to build their own real sukkah, but in the meanwhile, there are plenty of miniatures that they can tackle, crafted from shoe boxes — http://makeashorterlink.com/?O53E23AF5 — or Popsicle sticks — www.geocities.com/amynealw/sukkot.htm. But if you are going to put all that time and effort into making a sukkah, why not follow the lead of the kids at the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater in Virginia Beach, Va.? Make it an edible sukkah — www.chadiscrafts.com/fun/ediblesukkah.html. With graham-cracker walls, a pretzel-stick roof and Trix cereal decorations, who could go wrong?

The fourth-graders at Stamford, Conn.’s Bi-Cultural Day School took up the edible sukkah challenge and created an even stranger array of structures that you can browse at http://makeashorterlink.com/?J28D32AF5, using it as your own inspiration. Scroll down the page to find a question that, I presume, has been perplexing rabbis for millennia: “I wonder what blessing you say on eating a sukkah…”

Have a very happy holiday.

Mark Mietkiewicz is a Toronto-based internet producer who writes, lectures and teaches about the Jewish Internet. Reach him at [email protected]