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... 

 

Multi-Sensory Art

Children learn best, when many of their senses are involved in the learning.

 

So, in the spirit of thanksgiving...

this week we added cinnamon to the paint at the easel!

We posted  some images of Pumpkin pie on the easel, to inspire the children's art.

After painting images of pumpkin pies --- the children smelled their artwork! 

YUM! Cinnamon Spice!

Indians help the Pilgrims...at Gan!

Role playing a story always  adds a greater depth of understanding for the children.

As we told the story of Thanksgiving, we chose to focus on the part where the American Indians were so helpful and kind to the Pilgrims who had just gotten off a long and difficult boat ride.

Half of the children were the American Indians- wearing feathered hats, and living in Tepee's. The Indians knew how to plant food, and grow. The "Indians" went inside our classroom Tepee, watered our indoor vegetable garden.....

The other half of the group were Pilgrims- dressed in the black pilgrim hats, travelling in our make-shift boat!

Once the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock- they stepped off the boat. They were very hungry, and didn't know how to find food (there were no stores!)

The Indians were SO SO kind. They welcomed the pilgrims to America. They showed them how to plant corn, and grow vegetables.

The Pilgrims were so thankful for the Indians kindness- that they sat down together and had a Thanksgiving feast! 

They ate Turkey, corn & pumpkin pie!

When we know the kids "get it!"

 

 This morning, like all mornings- we had the centers set up to promote learning, exploration and skill building. Today, we observed a new accomplishment!

At the manipulative table we had rubber bands, along with hook boards. The children are encouraged to hook the bands onto one of the hooks, and create shapes. Usually at this age, the goal is the fine motor skill building, and we celebrate the child being able to simply get the rubber bands ON and STAY- without flicking off!

 As you can see in the pic above, most of the 3 year olds will simply try to put on as many rubber bands as they can, and are proud of that accomplishment.
Today, as i was sitting with Rachel- I could see she had mastered the skill of simply attaching the bands to the hooks, so I suggested she make a shape!

She chose to make the letter L.

What was so exciting, was on her own- after she saw she was able to make the letter L using 2 rubber bands, she walked over to our ABC chart- and found the corresponding letter L- to show me - "Look, its the same!"


It's truly rewarding when we are privy to see the learning being carried over into other areas of the children's world. I'm sure this happens all the time, but we don't always get to SEE IT!

Welcoming guests to Bake at Gan!

On Wednesday we welcomed lots of guests into our classroom!

From the VC Star newsreporter & photographer, to a bunch of new children and their moms!

We had a lot of fun following a recipe to make Pumpkin Pie! It was also a real life opportunity for our children to fulfill the mitzvah of "Hachnasat Orchim" (welcoming guests) that we spoke about last week! We were SO proud of all the children, who so graciously welcomed a bunch of new friends to our snack time, circle time, pie baking...and even to play with our pet Jackson!

These are the moments that show us- that the efforts we put into the character building of our students...is actually working!

This is our new friend Logan- who went straight from Gan to the Emeritus Assisted living to deliver a Pumpkin Pie!   Thank you to all the moms who sent us pics from their giving experience. Pictures help us take the experience to a new level- they allow us to reflect on what happened, and absorb the meaning of what was done! Just looking at the Joy in the recipients face reminds us of how important it is to repeat such activities!

 

 We also did some cooking this week...

The children worked hard to cut vegetables for a yummy vegetable soup! In honor of this weeks Torah portion where Yakov made Lentil soup and gave it to his brother Esav- we added Lentils to the soup!

We are constantly looking for opportunities to build our students self help skills! The concentration, patience and building of their fine motor skills are just a couple of the benefits the children gain from these activities!

Our Very Own Piece of the Pie!

With all the excitement going on at Gan, inviting  the larger community to join us in our mission of "Giving Back" it was a most heartwarming moment to see our very own class participate in the ACTION we've been talking about all week!

While we thank G-d, have SO many things to be thankful for- we chose to focus on GIVING back. Expressing those feelings of gratitude into ACTION.

We are thankful for the very kind Ruth Dersh who visits us every Thursday to read books during our quiet time after lunch. This week, we asked Ruth to stay home, and if she would allow us to visit her, to bring her a Thank you card, and Pumpkin Pie!  

It was a most meaningful moment. Enjoy the pics....

We also had another opportunity this week to drive the lesson home....

It was Morah Leah's birthday- so we brought cupcakes to her office to give her!

During circle time one day we spoke about the feeling we get when we give, and the feeling we get when we receive. We all agreed how WE FEEL HAPPY, when we make SOMEONE ELSE feel happy!

Below you can see the beautiful drawings each child made, to reflect what made each of them happy, when they gave it!