Saturday, December 11, 2010

Hanukkah Traditions and Story 2010


We are so fortunate to have a previous student S. come to our room each year and share the story and traditions of Hanukkah. Her brother J. was also assisting in explaining the history of Hanukkah to the class. Most of the students were very familiar with it because of her visit last year. However, this year they understood it better and were very ready to play the dreidel game.

S. & J. explained the story as follows: After three years of fighting, the Jews defeated the Syrians and, to celebrate, they restored the Temple of Jerusalem. As part of the celebrations they lit an oil lamp which should have been kept burning all the time, even though they could only find enough oil to keep it burning for one night. However, the oil lamp stayed lit for eight days, which was the time it took to make new oil for the lamp. This was the Miracle of the Oil.

Following the story, the fun of playing dreidel began. Everyone received their own with chocolate kisses to use as gelt (coins). The game was explained again and the children had a wonderful time learning the story and traditions of Hanukkah. Next year S. will be moving on to sixth grade, so J. will visiting us from second grade to keep our tradition going!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for putting our picture on the blog. Now many of the other kids can know about Hanukah! Once again, thank you.
Love, Joey

Melanie Holtsman said...

My kids loved learning about Hannukah. Thanks for sharing with the class Joey!

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