Morah Katie: Let's pretend I am from a different place and I don't know anything about the holiday of Chanukah.  What should I know? 

Noah: Well it happened a long time ago.

Dena: They would light the menorah in the Holy Temple.

Morah Katie: Who would light the menorah?

Tori: The Kohens and Judah Maccabee did.

Morah Katie: How did they light the menorah.

Dena: With Oil.

Morah Katie: Where did the oil come from.

Tori: They get the olives from trees and smash them and the oil would rise to the top.

Noah: The Syrian Greeks wrecked the temple.

Tori: They got the oil and spilt it.

Noah: The Greeks said don't celebrate and only make bad choices.

Morah Katie: What bad choices did they say to make?

Kian: Don't thank Hashem in the morning.

Gracie: Don't sing the Torah songs.

Morah Katie: That sounds pretty bad, what happened?

Isaac: They chased they bad guys and played dreidels.

Morah Katie: Who chased the bad guys away?

Tori: The Maccabees.

Gracie: The Maccabees made it so we could make good choices.

Tori: They were so brave they chased the Greeks away.

The young  Maccabees at The Gan played a good trick on the Greek solider who was bugging them.

After these smart brave young kids tricked the Greek solider, they chased her away.  

When they returned to the "temple" they had to search for the oil.

We found it!

 We had a lot of fun building a block Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple).

We enjoyed playing dreidels in our "cave".

 

We have been preparing for our holiday celebration!

 It has been an exciting week back from Thanksgiving break.  The children quickly became engaged as they returned from the long weekend.

Nature provided us with a wonderful gift Monday morning upon our return.

Morah Katie: How did our buckets get this way?
Noah: It got so cold it got ice!
Tori: It rained and then it got so cold it made the water ice
Morah Katie: Why is the tennis ball half sticking out of the ice?
Dena: It floated up in the water. 
Kian: The ice trapped it.
Morah Katie: Why aren't these rocks I put on the ice dropping into the water?
Noah: Cause it is ICE.

We are beginning to celebrate a great miracle that happened a long time ago.
Morah Tzivie shared a story with us which takes place a long time ago, before our parents were born, before our grandparents were born.

We listened to the similarities between us and the Jewish people who lived over 2000 years ago!
 We give Tzedakah, they gave Tzedakah; we are nice and kind, they were nice and kind.
We celebrate the holidays, they celebrated the holidays; we light Shabbat candles, they lit Shabbat candles.
 There are differences between now and 2000 years ago.
We drive in cars, they rode camels or horses or walked.  We can quickly go to the store to get our food, they had to grow and harvest their food.
We learned that in the city of Jerusalem there was the Beit Hamikdash, the holy temple.  We learned how the  Kohens took care of the temple, and that one of their jobs was to light the menorah each night.

Morah Tzivie brought olives to class.
She explained how the olives were collected from the olive groves in the countryside far away from the Beit Hamikdash.  The olive oil was made by squeezing a lot of olives under a big rock to get the juice and oil from the olive.

Morah Tzivie explained that the oil would rise to the top of the juice, which would then be collected and jarred, and brought to the temple for the menorah.  Just the journey from the groves to the temple was about a week.
Noah: A week can be a long time.  To bad they couldn't just go to the store to get it like my mom.





We lit oil in our classroom menorah and kept an eye on it throughout the day. It had finished burning before lunch, it was fun to watch it.

We began creating a model of the great temple. This involved looking at pictures/drawings of the temple and careful planning and discussion.  One interesting point of discussion was what would have happened if...
Noah: There should be booby traps for the Greeks.
Kian: They would have gotten trapped.  
Noah: They would have been caught and not destroyed the temple.  But the Maccabees were out in the caves and made an army to chase the Greeks out. 
Kian: Traps would have helped.

We had Chanukah parties.

We played with Mr. Potato Head, and drew portraits of Mr. Latke.

We dressed up as the brave Maccabees.

At the Gan we express our thanks throughout the day.

 We begin our day by singing our thanks.

Thank you Hashem for all the sunshine

and for the raindrops that must fall

For the flowers in springtime, 

and for the Torah we're thankful most of all

Morah Katie:  We are grateful for the sun, rain, flowers and the Torah.

We sing our gratitude everyday.  What are some other things you are thankful for?

Josiah: Gramma's and Grandpa's

Noah: All of our my preschool friends

Dena: A house

Tori: The Torah

Efraim: Hats

Dena: Coats

Aaron: Movies

Kian: Mom's and Dad's

In honor of Thanksgiving,

we created "thankful turkeys".

One of the things that generated a lot of thanks was food.

We talked about how the food comes to our table.

Morah Katie: How do you think the apples and tangerines made their way to our snack table?

Josiah: Well they grew from the a tree from a seed from the ground.

Morah Katie: They did, what do you think happened after they grew on the tree?

Kian: A farmer picked them.

Dena: And the farmer brought them to school or a store.

Morah Katie: We can be grateful for the work of the farmer and the clerks at the store, and our mom's and dad's for buying the fruit.  There is more to be grateful for, what do the fruit trees need to grow the fruit? 

Dena: Dirt

Tori: Sun

Morah Katie: Who provides the dirt and sun?

Dena: Well Hashem does.

Morah Katie: When we say our blessings before we eat, what are we doing?

Kian: Thanking Hashem for our food.