Hanukkah Activities

Hanukkah started on Sunday.  Happy Hanukkah to you if you celebrate!   I don’t happen to have students in my classroom this year that celebrate Hanukkah but here on Long Island many people celebrate Hanukkah and I would like my students to understand the holiday.  Just on Friday, one of my kiddos saw a menorah in the office and said “Miss Bohrer, look its Monica.”  I was confused and said “Who?”  He said, “You know Monica, the other Christmas holiday?”  I said, “Oh, honey that is a menorah and the holiday is called Hanukkah.  We will be learning about it next week.”  And here we are!

I read my students my favorite Hanukkah book, The Chanukkah Guest by Eric A. Kimmel.  The book has recently been republished as Hanukkah Bear.  It is about an old woman who mistakes a burly bear for her rabbi and feeds him all her latkes.  It is a funny book, that the students really enjoy. You can find the book {HERE} on Amazon, I originally got mine through Scholastic Book Clubs, and I am sure your local library will have one of the versions.

  

After we read the book, we completed a retelling on a dreidel craft.

You can grab the printables for the above activity {HERE} for free!

For those of you who do not know what latkes (lot-ka-z) are, they are kind of like McDonald’s Hash Browns.  I only first had them when I started teaching and a parent who celebrated Hanukkah offered to bring them in for the class.  I thought it was a fabulous idea and I really liked them.  The students really liked them, too.  So now each year, I try to get a parent volunteer to make them or I buy the frozen kind and heat them up.

Latkes are served with applesauce or sour cream.  Never to miss an opportunity for math, I have the students graph how they best like their latkes.  Click the pictures below to download your copy of the activity for free!

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