Chanukah in Kindergarten - Part 2

Parshat Vayigash

Last week's Parsha left all of  kindergarten on the edge of our seats! Yosef had his brothers in front of him begging to spare Binyomin's life. But they had no idea who he was, and he didn't tell them!! What was going to  happen??!!??

In this week's Parsha, Yosef reveals himself to his brothers and tells them that he forgives them. He didn't tell them right away who he was, because he wanted to make sure that they had done Teshuva (repentance) for the mistake they made.  

Ask your child to show and tell you what the right thing to do is, in order to fix a mistake? 

( when you say sorry, say it like you mean it!)

He gave his brothers' gifts and sent them back to their home. Yosef told his brothers " tell my father I am alive and bring him down to Mitzrayim (Egypt) where it will be good for you to live."

Family Chanukah Party

The scavenger hunt we did was so fun!

Max and his Mommy worked together as a team to figure out the clues!

Elizabeth and Levi Yitzchak portrayed scared Jews reacting to the Greek decree.

Kindergarten know how to act like Maccabees!

Because we practice Stopping and Thinking before we Talk.

Our Maccabee Shields remind us how to be a Maccabee!

Kindling a Love of Learning on Chanukah- Dreidle Math!

Menucha and Elizabeth spun their dreidels, 

marking the tally on a graph of the letters it landed on!

We learned a new sound ! ג 

We're going! We're going! Guh, Guh, Guh

and many more sounds as well!!

 Yisroel and Elizabeth deliberate over which card to choose 

in this Chanukah Matching game.

Putting it All Together. Creativity needed!

We had to use different shapes to make a Chanukah picture. 

Everyone was so creative!

 Proud of all our accomplishments, from this fun challenge!

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

 We were so lucky to have celebrated Elizabeth's birthday on the first day of Chanukah!

She turned 6! May she go from strength to strength in every aspect of her life!

she invited both classes to join in her Simcha!

Birthday gifting!

In honor of her birthday, 3 new fish joined our aquarium!

The Moriarity Family also sponsored new filters for our fish friends.

And thats a Chanuka wrap!

This week we enjoyed the last couple of days of Chanuka together!

Morah Rachel's father made a big beautiful dreidel for us to enjoy! We brought it to our davening circle and invited children to spin the dreidel!  Whatever it landed on, helped us decide which song in davening we would sing!

Having fun with beads and pipe cleaners making them into Menorahs.

Chanuka painting fun.

On the last day of Chanuka we enjoyed a special treat! We made mini Dreidels out of marshmallows and chocolate bits with cheerios as the spinner ;)

It has been such a beautiful Holiday and the children did so much preparation and celebration this past week! It was  important to help the children wrap up the holiday by reflecting on memories, information they learned and say goodbye till next year. 

On the art table we placed different Chanuka pictures to help the children draw their own sweet memories about Chanuka.

Menachem drawing when his father lit a big Menorah at a Chanuka party.

Moshe reflecting on a picture of himself lighting the menorah at home. 

At circle time Hannah shared a picture of her and her dad lighting the menorah together. 

We used a I-phone to help faiga and Mina show videos and pictures from their Chanuka experiences.

 Friends and sweet moments.

Parshat Vayeishev: When Jealousy Takes Over

What Happens When I'm Jealous

In this weeks Parsha (Torah Portion) we learn about the relationship between Yosef and his brothers.  Yosef was his fathers favorite son, and it showed, when Yakov made him a special coat!  The coat was the last straw for his brothers and their jealousy over came them and they plotted against him. 
In our class we learned that everybody is special in a different way and we need each other to help and learn from one another. Being jealous of each other only gets in the way of that.
What happens when we get jealous? It removes us from our friends and that's what happened to Yosef's brothers, they removed themselves and did not nice things to him.
In our class we learned that it is very important to "talk it out" so that we don't hurt our friends feelings . Also, when we see our friend is sad we learned from Yosef to be nice and help our friend feel better.

          Chanuka Story continued...

 In Jerusalem, the Maccabi's had to fight against the Greeks and the terrible decrees that Antiochus gave in order to continue observing Torah and Mitzvos.

Menucha and Levi Yitzchak act out the Chanuka story using puppets.

We learned from the Maccabi's that we need to fight our own battles.

One thing  we are focusing on is how to talk to our friends without hurting their feelings.

Sometimes we don't realize that we are talking in a way that could hurt a friends feelings.

We pretended to be Maccabi's hiding to learn Torah in caves.

   Science Experiment: Oil and Water

We took several different materials and then hypothesized (that means guess) what would happen when we mixed them together.

First we put water in a container, after that we added oil and food coloring

We found out that oil and water don't mix with each other. 

When we added alka seltzer tablets, bubbles started coming up and the food coloring started coloring the water. 

It was really fun to watch! We wanted to do it again and again!

"I can't do it at home because I dont have apple cider (Alkaseltzer tablets)!"- Max said

    

           Journey's in Math

We learn math in so many fun and interactive ways!

When you spill the beads and count them you get the answer!

  

Yisroel is adding the missing dots with play dough!

Math is pretty great!- or less than or equal to!

The alligator mouth wants to eat the bigger number

Yud Tes Kislev Farbrengen

Rabbi Lang came and told us all about the special day! It is the Rosh Hashana for Chabad Chassidus. 

Today is the day that The Alter Rebbe was released from jail, and he started to spread Judaism and Chassidus even more than before.

Muka was so excited to say a posuk! And she knew all the words too!

I can be a Maccabee!

After a peaceful week of experiencing what life was like for the Jewish people in Israel during a beautiful time period, with the Beis Hamikdash; it was now time to introduce the miraculous Chanuka story.

The new King Antiyochus created rules for the Jewish people.

We invited the children to play the roles.

1) No learning Torah as a Holy book.

 2) No bris for Jewish baby boys.

3) No keeping Shabbos

Being Brave

After hearing the new rules, we discussed with the children how we cannot be afraid of a human King. It was such an empowering lesson when they learned that it was the children who decided to hide the Torahs and take out dreidels when the soldiers would come to their cave.

"We love our Torah"

Showing the soldier their dreidels.

The challenge for Jews continued as they returned to their holy Beis Hamikdash and found a mess.

As we acted this out the children's faces were devastated now knowing all about the holy Beis Hamikdash and how special it was they were able to relate to what the Jewish people must have felt back then.

We can be a Maccabee!

We asked the children "Now what? should we just be sad and stare at this mess?"

We can be like the Maccabees and be strong clean it up and make it holy again!

As we were putting  back all the vessels, the children realized we were missing the olive oil jugs.

How is the Kohen going to light the Menorah?

The children knew how long it took to make the olive oil and realized they needed to find some oil that the Greeks didn't break!

After searching we found one jug!- Dovi played the Kohen Gadol quite happy to be lighting the Menorah again. 

Faiga lighting with real olive oil.

Maccabee moments

This week the children became Maccabees! Each time they stood up for what's right or noticed a friend needed something and jumped right in we documented it and will be using it for our Chanuka party!

Making Latkas!

Getting ready for Chanuka!

Our beautiful Menorahs  for chanuka in process.

Hannah and dovi creating salt dough dreidels.

Menachem painting his Menorah a beautiful gold paint just like in the Beis Hamikdash.

 

Faiga and Moshe helping glue the candle holders/

Chanuka sensory table

Happy birthday Hannah!