Happy Chanukah!

The kindergarten children have been exploring Chanukah through many lenses. As each of us work towards becoming our best self every day, we think about our values, morals and beliefs to help us on our journey. We focus on our best habits to in order to build our moral character. The journey is not always an easy one, and the story of Chanukah reminded us that even when it is difficult for us, we always try to do what we know is right!


After retelling the story of Chanukah, the children discussed how hard it must have been for the Jewish people to remain strong in their beliefs when others around them told them they should believe in something different. We always remember that Hashem loves us and protects us. This helps us everyday when we are faced with difficult situations. We recognized that we struggle sometimes to do the right thing, even when we know we should! One friend offered, “I can help my friends do the right thing, when I do the right thing!” Another friend suggested, “When I feel like being silly, I can try harder!”

Chanukah also reminded us that we are a classroom community! Just like the Macabees stood in their beliefs together, we as a community work and play together. Many of our hands on Chanukah experiences saw our friends helping each other and working together. Sharing Chanukah in this way, makes us feel connected to each other and to the Jewish community!

Dreidel is always a Chanukah favorite, and we added a fun twist to it! We graphed our results after spinning the dreidel. This was a wonderful opportunity for us to discuss the concept probability. We used our completed graphs to compare our results!

Crafting our own menorah to use this Chanukah gave the children an opportunity to work with clay. As each child came up with different ideas about color patterns, and how to fashion the clay, it was a pleasure to hear them exclaim, “Oh…I love that! Can you show me how you did that?” “That looks so pretty!” “Can you help me shape it like yours?” Working together on their own individual menorahs, the children displayed their own unique creativity with sensitivity and true Chanukah spirit!

 Our classroom needed some beautiful Chanukah decorations, and the children were delighted to make dreidel prints to hang about the classroom. Using sponges and paint, they children stamped out dreidel prints. After they dried, they cut out their dreidels and used glue to “write” the Hebrew letters (nun, shin, gimmel, hay) and added glitter to make them sparkle! They proved to be just the right Chanukah touch for our class!

Each day of Chanukah, the kindergarten children join the rest of our Zimmer friends to light our beautiful menorah in our lobby. We recite the blessings together and then join in song! This wonderful tradition has become our favorite part of the day. We love seeing our siblings, friends and Morahs and sharing this special time together. We light the menorah each day at 11:30 in the morning. Stop in and join us during these remaining days of Chanukah!

Happy Chanukah!