H is for Hannukah & Hebrew: Carving Dreidels
jHannukah landed last Saturday. We have never studied the holiday or Jewish religion, so we've incorporated it into our alphabet theme studies. We started by the history of Hannukah, the reason for lighting the menorrah and eating foods like potato latke and jelly doughnuts
Then we read the story, Hannukkah Bear, about an old lady waiting for the Rabbi to visit, but instead receiving a bear as her guest!>We wanted to try the game Dreidel, but had none on hand. The kids decided they could probably make one out of 2x2 wood. They each sawed a rectangular chunk, then lopped off the bottom corners before sanding the bottom into a round shape. We learned the Hebrew letters for each of the four sides and burned them in with wood burners. For the very last step, they found thin dowel and drilled them into the top for spinning!
Then we gathered some stones to play, but traditionally children play with chocolate coins (gelt.)