Lighting Up the Dark

Chanukah has been a blast! On Monday everyone in Mitzvah Menchies came in telling us the fun things they had done over the weekend. We heard stories of chocolate gelt, latkes, donuts and dreidels.

Some friends even brought in their wallets to show us their Chanukah gelt.

Each day we spoke about what day of Chanukah we were on, slowly but surely more and more flames were added to the Menorah. The light was getting stronger and stronger.

We turned off the lights and saw how one small candle can light up a whole room.

Our Mitzvos are like the candle that can light up the world. 

Creating some Flame art, using paint  drips and then scraping it off to reveal the beautiful marbleized colors beneath.

The Mitzvah Mentchie Maccabees reviewing the Chanukah story, 

this book tells the story using the Chanukah candles as the narrator.

Yanky was proud to have completed the Menorah with the tangram shapes.

Taking our time to color in the lines.

Our family scavenger hunt was so much fun! Doing the Chanukah yoga with our mommies.

Stopping at the Menorahs to get the different clues!

We enjoyed special activities in honor of Chanukah!

Playing dreidel was a treat!

We love to do regular pearler beads, 

so we switched it up and made some edible Chanukah themed ones!

Decorating donuts was a definite highlight! We saw some creative designs.

Playing a life size prize matching game, Hashem chose the teams of two through a lottery,

 then we chose trays, if we got a matching prize we got to keep it!

 

Chanuka fun!

Having a fun filled Chanuka week!

Decorating  delicious Chanukah cookies.

Menachem, tasting his work ;)

Making Menorahs out of playdough. Shua, coloring dots where he wants his candles to go.

Menucha, practicing her math skills by counting her candles.

Every circle time this week, we had fun singing the different Chanukah songs we know. Ben, really enjoyed making music on the Xylophone.

It was so nice to see Morah Malka this week! We have missed her so much doing music and movements with us. Thanks to zoom, we were able to sing and dance together!

Chana, found some recycling items to make a drum like Morah Malka.

Ben working hard on his water colors on his dreidel.

Menucha using her cutting skills while talking about dreidels.

Our Chanukah car hunt was a blast! It was so great to see bonding experiences between parents and grandparents looking for Menorahs around Camarillo and getting a treat!

Menachem, doing Chanukah yoga making the letter Shin. Shua, being squeezed and hugged like a little olive from his mommy.

Yakov, making his body into a Maccabee.

Using our gross motor skills trying to get the latka back in the frying pan!

We made fun Chanuka necklaces. Checking ourselves in the mirror.

 

What Chanukah is Oil About!

                                  We started off the week exploring the process of making olive oil.                                                                            We touched and smelled some olives on the branch.                                                      We smooshed some and tried to turn it into olive oil.

When we squeezed out the juice, we noticed the tiny drops of oil floating on the top.

Chana Rochel creates the word oil out of playdough.

We did an experiment and mixed oil and water together to see what would happen.

The oil rose up to the top! The scientists took turns mixing until it looked like it was mixed together.

We left it overnight, and when we came back the next day, the oil rose to the top again!

The Jewish people are just like the oil, the Greeks tried to change us and stop us from doing Torah and Mitzvos, but we rose up strong over them. 

We are like the Maccabees!

We practiced setting up the Menorah for Chanukah and learned the rules for what makes a Menorah kosher.

Figuring out which Menorah's were kosher or not.

We learned about how the Jewish kids rose above the Greek soldiers who didn't want them learning Torah, they played with Dreidels to fool them!

Dreidel bump was a fun two-player math game! 

We had to bump each other off if we rolled the same number.

This sequin art project was a little challenging. 

We used our tiny hand muscles to pin down the sequins to create a dreidel.

Chanukah Puzzles were a challenge! 

Decorating donut cookies!

Getting our Menorah's ready to go home!

Chanukah Song: TTTO Maoz Tzur

On the scale of wrong and right,

Our mitzvos bring the world more light,

when the Greeks made the wrong choice

the darkness had a louder voice 

I can be a Maccabee

And light up the world for all to see 

Spread the light, do whats right, x2

bring moshiach speedily