Gan Camarillo Preschool: I can be a Maccabee!

Thursday, December 7, 2017

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!