The program activities listed below fall into one of four categories:

1. Teaching the Story of Purim
2. Developing Purim Themes
3. Observing Purim - Activities to Enhance Purim Observance
4. Celebrating Purim through Parody and the Carnival

Each approach has its own value, and the educational goals vary between them. There are several program ideas listed for each category.

Introduction:
The Purim story can be taught each year at a higher level, throughout the school years. These activities are appropriate both for the first time the story of Purim is taught, as well as after there is familiarity, to increase the student's knowledge and enjoyment of the holiday.

General Educational Goals:

1. Students will be familiar with the basic events of the Purim story;
2. Students will be able to identify the main characters and conflicts in the Megilla;

Create a megillah script. Depending on available resources, the children can either create puppets for the Purim characters, or make costumes, and star themselves.

The students actively participate in the retelling of the Purim story. If the children are too young to read, the teacher can read the story to them. S/He can assign sound effects to the children to keep their focus - For example, divide the class into groups, each group will get a sound related to a character (the king, Haman, Esther, Mordechai, etc.), and when the leader mentions that character, those children make the sound effect.

Or the teacher can go around the circle, and tell the story, pausing at interesting spots to allow the students to make up their own spontaneous sound effects. (For example, pausing during the king's first party. The student can make eating or drinking noises, or other party sounds.)

The leader stands in the middle of the room, on a chair. The group of children march in a circle around the chair. The leader calls out a type of character and all the children have to walk as if they were that character. Characters include: Achashverosh, Esther, Mordechai, Vashti, Haman, Zeresh, Persian at the banquet, Jew fasting and mourning, Jews fighting back against the Persians, etc.

Maintain each character for a couple of minutes, to let the children get a feel for the role, and to enjoy each others' characterizations.

Specific Educational Goal: By portraying the characters from the Megilla, the students are excited by their immediate connection to the story and gain understanding of the drama and conflict therein.

The Purim story is presented as either one nightly news feature (choose one event from the Megilla) or as several evenings of news. First, the moderator familiarizes the students with the outline of the Purim story. The students will then present the issues as newscasters. The teacher can assign them to conduct mock interviews "in the field," or to include guest commentators.

If the group is large enough, two teams can be formed, representing a Jewish news station, and a Persian news station. Each side presents the events as they see them. Students can be encouraged to even distort facts or engage in "selective" reporting.

Specific Educational Goal: Students will gain insights into the events by creating a sense of their immediacy. If two points of view are presented, it is also an opportunity to view the Purim story from another perspective, and even to address issues of "objective" reporting and bias in the news.

Introduction:
There are many themes in Purim that can be addressed for educational purposes. Among them: Exile, Hiddenness, Divine Providence, Salvation, Self-defense, Unity, Assimilation, and Antisemitism. (See Educator's Guide Themes for more.)

General Educational Goals of Thematic Activities: Students broaden their understanding of Purim by seeing the larger philosophical issues the holiday raises. They also deepen their appreciation of Judaism and the Jewish holidays by seeing the depth of content contained within the festival.

The moderator chooses a theme (or themes) and presents it (them) to the group, explaining the connection to the Purim story. The students can then either engage in a discussion of the theme - how it relates to them, what they believe (or don't), other examples in life or Judaism where it applies.

Alternatively, the teacher can make this a writing excercise, by having the students write a short essay on the topic.

There are several places within the Purim site where these themes are addressed. If there are computers available, the teacher can have the students search the site for information on the themes.

Debates can also be structured around themes. Choose a topic and then try to create a conflict related to it. For example, for the theme of "Eradicating Haman" (from the mitzvah to destroy Amalek), the students can debate: Is it possible that mercy can be bad, and that cruelty, even to the point of murder, could actually be the merciful choice? As an obvious starting point, the teacher can pose the question, "What if Hitler could have been assassinated before he became a political figure?" These discussions may lead to a clear conclusion or not -- the important point is to get the students involved in considering the issues.