I am a Macabee!

Chanuka unit 2

Our week started off by continuing to explore/play in the Beis Hamikdash. We noticed how the children taught themselves new things about the Kohanim.

Yakov, noticed in the picture the Kohanim washed their hands and their feet before doing their holy work. Chana, wanted to take off her shoes and socks just like the Kohanim did! 

We talked a lot about the oil that they used for lighting the Menorah. We experimented with water and oil at our art center one morning. Oil mixed with color dripped into the water tray and created a beautiful scene when placing our jug papers on top of the mixture.

After experiencing the beautiful times for the Jewish people during the Beis Hamikdash, it was now time to talk about the miracle of Chanuka.

King Antiyochus came to visit us at circle time. We practiced our mad faces to understand what type of feeling this king brought. He had a lot of not nice rules like no Shabbos. 

The king and the greeks made a really bad choice and decided to make a mess of the Beis Hamikdash and spill out and ruin all the pure olive oil.

We are quite concious that this story can bring about some scary feelings. During circle time we kept reasuring our friends that Hashem was and is ALWAYS watching over us!

What did the Jewish people do?

We asked questions like, should we just cry? Should we use our hands to the king?

What did the MACABEES do?

They worked really hard to clean it! Our friends got right to work and we learned how we can still be a Macabee like the Jews did back then!

Finally with our friends help we lifted the heavy menorah and we asked our friends to help find some oil so we can light it again. That's when we remembered what the king did. 

Let's not give up! We searched and searched! Shua found a small jug of oil! With this hands on experience we felt our friends excitement and got a taste of what it was like.

Menachem helped light the Menorah. We role played going to sleep and when we woke up Hashem put more oil in the jug! This happened for 8 days!

Counting out our candles adding one each night.

"I can be a Macabee"

Our big idea this week and a lifeskill is we can still be macabees! We can stand up and do what's right!

Anytime we caught a friend making a right choice we wrote it on shiny paper and put it on our big Macabee sign.

Fun Chanuka centers, sparking play dough and chanuka shapes and fun chanuka stamps.

Have a Happy Chanuka! We will light up this world!