Brave like a Maccabee

 The Chanuka Story continued this week with all of us getting into a cave (that we turned our table into). We took our Torah's & Shabbos Candles so we can still learn Torah and do mitzvos. 

When Antiochus's soldiers came to check on what we were doing, we quickly hid our Torah's and took out dreidels!

It wasn't very comfortable and fun to live as Jews in caves! A brave man Yehuda Maccabee stood up and said "Mi La'Hashem Eilai" "Whoever is for Hashem, come with me!" lets come out and fight King Antiochus and his not nice rules!

The children all raised their hands, and said yes- lets fight back!

We went into the Mini Beis Hamikdash for the continuation of the story! It was sad to see Antoichus's soldiers ruining our precious Beis Hamikdash. He was breaking all the olive oil's so that there would not be any Kosher oil to light the menorah.

Our Maccabee friends RAN to help clean up the Beis Hamikdash, 

and search for oil so we can light the Menorah!

It was very exciting to find ONE oil with the seal still on it

We poured some oil into a glass cup to see how oil can burn! The second miracle that we celebrate is that the oil that was only enough to burn for one night, lasted for 8 nights!

 

One of the ways we reinforced the true strength of the Maccabees was by posting our Mitzvah notes on a big Maccabee shield! The Jewish Macabees won the war because of all the mitzvah's they did and their trust in Hashem!

Cave painting & Menorah painting

 

Dreidel Centers:

We've been using the dreidel to have fun learning to recognize the letters Nun, Gimmel, Hay and Shin.

We did patterning with colored dreidels and also using dry erase boards wrote down the letter our dreidel landed on! Menachem drew a Shin!

 

Chaya Leah made  a gimmel on a dreidel using shapes!

                                                  

Alef Beis Letter recognition games!

Hebrew Letter Yud

This week we learned the hebrew letter Yud. We opened a siddur and pointed out that whenever we see 2 yuds together it is Hashem's name! After scrunching our bodies into the shape of a yud, we sang the song, "Hashem is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere...up up, down down...all around..." 

In that spirit we went on a Yud hunt all around our classroom! The children had to find the Yuds that were hidden all around! 

Hebrew Letters Kaf & Chaf

We introduced the letters Kof (with a dot) and Chof .

We did a tricky worksheet to sort out the Kofs and Chofs that look so similar! We also used our hand to make a fist/dot and every time Morah pointed to the letter Kof, we put it in our belly, and every time she pointed to the letter Chof, we put it behind our backs!

Yud Tes Kislev- Rosh Hashana for Chassidut!

We celebrated with a school wide hot lunch, with delicious vegetable soup and Pizza! Rabbi Lang told an animated story of a King whose son was very sick! Ask your child to tell you the story!

Chanukah Story & the Miracle of the oil!

To help the children learn the story of Chanuka we turned a table into a cave and climbed inside with our Torahs!

 

We davened in our cave, and when we were warned that King Antiochus soldiers were coming we stopped davening and spinned our dreidels.

The story continued with our whole school joining together in our Mini Beis Hamikdash!

We watched Morah Leah use a puppet to show King Antiochus breaking all the oils and ruining the beautiful Beis Hamikdash. We all helped to clean up the mess that he made, and search for a pure oil so we can light the Menorah.

Hashem made 2 big miracles! The first Miracle was that the small group of Maccabees won over the big Greek Army, and took back the Beis Hamikdash. The second miracle was that there was only enough oil to burn for one day, but Hashem made a miracle and the oil burned for 8 days! 

(That was how long it would take to make more olive oil.)

Because of this miracle, we celebrate Chanuka by lighting the Menorah for 8 days! 

We worked hard making our very own Menorah's!

Lots of work and attention to detail painting our clay menorahs!

Coloring our Macabee shields!

 Learning shapes through the Chanuka story

Using rectangles, triangles, circles and squares 

we created Dreidels, latkas in pans, and a Menorah!

Yud Tes Kislev- Rosh Hashana for Chassidut!

We celebrated with a school wide hot lunch, with delicious vegetable soup and Pizza! Rabbi Lang told an animated story of a King whose son was very sick! Ask your child to tell you the story!

Family fun at Gan!

Chanukah #2

Life in the Beis Hamikdash

We got a special Tour of the Beis Hamikdosh in the Tots room! We experienced the regular life of the Jews in Eretz Yisroel before the Greeks came and destroyed everything. 

Dressing up as the Kohanim brought the Beis Hamikdash to life for us!

We read a book called "Pinni the Pitcher."  This book told the story of Chanukah through the eyes of a pitcher of oil. It helped us see the story from another perspective! 

For breathing by circle time we filled our own jug of oil in our bellies ;)

Oil

 Olive oil was a big part of the miracle for Chanukah, so we are exploring its properties and how oil works!

We did an experiment with dropping oil into water color, It was fascinating to see how the oil stayed separated from the water paint even when we ducked the whole paper inside it! We learn from the oil that the Jewish people were strong and kept themselves separate from the Greeks!

Olive oil glitter jar

We use oil to fry Latkes that we eat on Chanukah! We made pretend ones for our bulletin board! We also worked hard on other chanuka crafts for our Classroom Bulletin!

 

We began to discuss what a Maccabee is! They were brave people who stood for what was right! 

They used their BIG VOICE and made right choices! King Antiochus made rules that didn't let Jews study Torah or keep the Mitzvahs that they love so much!   He didn't let them keep kosher, Shabbos, or have a bris milah! 

When we had snack time, the King Achashverosh puppet came around and told our friends to NOT say a Bracha (blessing). Our friends used their big voices and Maccabee strength to say the Bracha in front of him! This made him weaker and weaker.....

Parsha:

 In this weeks Torah portion of Vayishlach, Yaakov prepared to meet His brother Eisav after not seeing him for many years. Remembering how not nice Eisav was to Yaakov, he had to prepare properly to meet him. Yaakov prepared in 3 ways:

1. He Davened to Hashem. We spoke about the fact that we can ALWAYS daven to Hashem to protect us whenever we don't feel safe.  Having that in mind we had a really meaningful davening that day. 

2. He sent gifts to Eisav. We practiced our bow tie skills ;) 

3. He divided his family into 2 groups, just incase Eisav wanted to go to war, then only half of them would have to fight.

Aleph Beis letters: " Ches & Tes"

We went on a mission to figure how to change the letter Ches to a Tes with one line of tape! We figured out where it goes with much observance at the chart :) Then each friend went on a journey with a safari hat to balance on the Tes. We cheered them on by saying tt TES tt TES.. 

 Match it Alef Beis dreidel game!