Journey Back in time....2,000 years. Making the story of Chanuka come to life for our children!

We are always striving to make the Holiday stories as meaningful and relevant to the children as possible. At our staff meetings, we learn and absorb the story on an adult level, and then try to think "What would this look like though the eyes of a 3 or 4 year old?"

 We are SO excited about how we have prepared the children at Gan for understanding and appreciating the story of Chanukah this year.

 

Our starting point was something the children can completely relate to.

THEIR HOME. 

Our home is a place we love, a place we are comfortable, a place that is safe, a place that makes us happy....

 

Each parent sent us a picture of the front of their home.

 

 During circle time, each child spoke about their home, and why they love it. (They also had a chance to draw something they like about their home.)

THEN....

Using each families picture, we made a "village" on a shower curtain!

We taped on each home...and drew roads for the children to go from house to house...visiting each other...using toy cars and little people.

 

This was our introduction to the "Beit Hamikdash" (Holy Temple)- which was Hashem's Home.  

Notice picture of Temple in the left corner.

 

 On our floorplan, we added a picture of the Beit Hamikdash! Helping the children understand it is a place that is "Hashem's Home."

This was our segue into understanding and appreciating what life was like in Israel during the time of the Chanuka Story. 

KEEP READING.... FOR HOW WE BROUGHT  THIS TIME IN JEWISH HISTORY TO LIFE...

 

 

In order to truly appreciate the  Miracle of Chanukah and what the Jewish people went through at that time, we chose to spend a week focusing on what life was like in Israel for the Jewish people, 2,000 years ago- during the time of the Greek Empire. We asked ourselves: how can we help a child who lives in 2012 (with wireless and electricity) appreciate the Chanukah miracle of the Menorah's oil burning for 8 days? 

and what will it mean to our children that the Jewish people couldn't find any bottles of oil with the Kohen's (High priests) seal on it?

 

 

Hence our plan: 

 

 

Our Classroom "Beit hamikdash" Center.

"Kiyor" Special "Washing dispenser" used by the Kohanim to wash their hands and feet prior to doing their jobs

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Olive Oil was used to light the Menorah! Real Olive tree branches, pitchers and vessels for children to use as they role play the jobs of the Kohen in the Beit Hamikdash.

We set up a beautiful "Beit Hamikdash" (Temple) center in our classroom. 

 We listened to the similarities between us and the Jewish people who lived over 2000 years ago!
 We give Tzedakah, they gave Tzedakah; we are nice and kind, they were nice and kind.
We celebrate the holidays, they celebrated the holidays; we light Shabbat candles, they lit Shabbat candles.
 There are differences between now and 2000 years ago.
We drive in cars, they rode camels or horses or walked.  We can quickly go to the store to get our food, they had to grow and harvest their food.

We can turn on lights with a switch, they burned oil.

We learned that in the city of Jerusalem there was the Beit Hamikdash, the holy Temple.  We learned how the  Kohens took care of the temple, and that one of their jobs was to light the menorah each day.

 

 

The children were part of the process...in creating  the walls for this center.

The children dipped wooden blocks into paint, to create an image of stone bricks.

 

The children felt right at home...dressing up in "Kohen" costumes....

Performing the jobs of the Kohen...

lighting the Menorah...pouring Oil into the cups...

Notice the Menorah has only 7 branches...which is what the Menorah of the Beit Hamikdash had.

 (Later when we tell the story of the miracle of Chanuka...we will explain to the children that we light 8 branches, to remind us of that miracle!)

A few days after we had introduced this center, we told the children about another job that was performed in the Beit Hamikdash- it was for the people who were a "Levite."

 (Rachel was very excited to find out that her father is a Levi! So he would have this job)

The Leviim (Levites) would play instruments and sing special songs in the Beit Hamikdash.  We brought out a basket of tambourines and other instruments for the children to role-play.

 

The children also  learned how the olives were collected from  olive groves in the countryside far away from the Beit Hamikdash.  

The olive oil was made by squeezing a lot of olives under a big rock to get the juice and oil from the olive. They saw pictures of the process of making Olive oil, touched Olive branches, and actually squeezed and tasted real olives.

 

Next week we will introduce King Antiochus...and what he wanted the Jewish people to do...