The Channukah Unit was SO much fun in our class! We heard the story of Channukah and learned about why we celebrate it today. We also learned about and experienced many traditions and customs that go along with this wonderful holiday. While having all this fun we also learned a lot and worked on developing many important skills. For example, during circle time while playing the "Rolly Polly Name Game" we learned letters "D" for dreydel, "C" for candle and "M" for Menorah.
Here are some other examples of how we experienced Channukah in our class.
We strengthened our little hands while rolling play-doh to make candles for the menorah play-doh mats and pressing play-doh cutters to make dreydels.
We strengthened our developing fine motor skills while attempting to spin dreydels.
Every day during circle time we counted candles on the Menorah and pretended to light them. Shamash, "the helper candle" helped us with this task.
One day during circle time morah demonstrated making potato latkes with play food ingredients.
Then we made potato latkes all by ourselves in the kitchen area. We took turns grating the potato, cracking eggs, adding flour, pouring oil and frying the latkes. It was even more fun pretending to eat them.
We worked on our pre-writing development while drawing a latke on a pan and a bottle of oil. We are training our hands to draw things that we see, it is so exciting!
When we couldn't draw a shape we figured out that we can trace it. What great problem solving!
Here we are making REAL potato latkes.
Morah helped us grate the potatoes.
Then we added other ingredients like flour, eggs and salt.
We followed the recipe very carefully. The pictures on the recipe helped us figure out what ingredient to add next.
We even saw the latkes frying in the oil and learned some very important kitchen safety rules.
It was so much fun being in the kitchen with our morahs.
The latkes smelled so good and looked even better.
When we got bored of waiting for the latkes to finish frying we spun dreydels.
Finally, we took the latkes back to class to enjoy :)
We practiced counting and number recognition while playing the "Latke Plates" game.
Morah also used the "funny latke glove" and the "latke plates" while singing the "Five Little Latkes" song during circle time.
To decorate our classroom window we made dreydel sun catchers. They looked pretty in our window while the sun was shining through them.
During music time we sang the dreydel song and spun like little dreydels :)
Until we all fell down :) This was so much fun we did it over and over until we were too dizzy.
Together with morah, we build a Menorah in our block center.
We even made real olive oil from olives! First we took out the pits from all the olives and put the olives in a special press. Then we took turns turning the olive press that squished the olives to make olive juice.
Look at all that olive juice we made!
Rabbi Yitzchok poured the olive juice in a little tube and put the tube in a special spinning machine to separate the oil from the juice.
The machine buzzed and tickled our hands while it was spinning.
When the oil was ready we poured it into the Menorah and lit it with a match. We watched the Menorah shine so bright while we sang Channukah songs.
Here we are making doughnuts. We are such good cooks we can make almost anything :)
We went to the kitchen with our morahs again to see the doughnuts fry in oil. Look how yummy they look.
Those doughnuts looked so good we couldn't even wait to get back to class to eat them. We just plopped ourselves on the kitchen floor and started munching on them.
Lastly, we made take home Menorahs. They were fun to make and came out beautiful.
Holidays are SO Much Fun ! ! !
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