My kids have been asking all about Hanukkah, so we took a few days to take a look at this eight day holiday that begins next week…
Hanukkah is called the Festival of the Lights and commemorates the Miracle of Oil. Long, long ago in about 175 BC the Jews were able to conquer the Syrian Greeks and evict them from Israel. The enemy had weapons and the Maccabee Jews did not. But slowly and steadily and bit by bit they managed to wear down their enemies. Then they restored the Temple only to discover that they could only find enough oil to light the menorah for one day… Now the Menorah oil was very special, pure oil and the priests took se7en days to prepare the oil. The miracle of Hanukkah is that that small amount of oil lasted the full eight days that the priests needed to establish their oil for the Menorah.
We found loads of links and lots of help online:
- Activity village is always a good place to start.
- Kaboose tells us exactly what Hannukah is all about and explains some of the new words that go with the festival as well.
- This is a brilliant, fun resource from Chabad.org.
- You can Listen to the store of the Miracle of the Maccabees here…
- I love the Hannukah crafts on Kids Craft Weekly.
- And then there is the unbeatable resource: The Crafty Crow.
- And here you can find a printable dreidel and how to play dreidel games.
We followed up with some Hanukkah Crafting:
You can’t possibly celebrate without a menorah, we painted egg-boxes and used tea lights for our eight candles and then a large candle for the shammus, which is the servant candle from which you light the other candles. The shammus candle is there so that the Hanukkah candles aren’t used by accidentally… the Hanukkah candles are special and can’t be used for other purposes.
And some serious painting…
And made a Menorah for the windowsill:
And finally what would a holiday be if we didn’t have a recipe:
So we learnt how to make Latke’s. Latkes are potato pancakes that are traditionally eaten during hanukkah, because they are cooked in oil and remind us of the significance of oil during the holiday.
You will need:
1 kg of potatoes.
1 onion finely chopped.
2 eggs beaten.
4 tablespoons of flour.
1 teaspoon baking powder
salt and pepper.
oil for frying.
You need to do a lot of potato peeling…
And lot of potato grating…
Drain the potato gratings and add all the ingredients into a bowl together, mix everything together
Drop spoonfuls of batter into the oil in a pan and cook them on both sides until they are crispy.
Until you have a feast…
Enjoy them with apple sauce or sour cream. And Have a Happy Hanukkah!!!
Fun- we’re Jewish and in full swing over here getting ready- I love the activities you did-
I’ll check out the links too.
Hi Ren Lady of the Arts!!! Great to meet you … we had so much fun – taking a total break from the commercial Christmas madness and learning about Hanukkah!!! Love your dripping candles – fantastic!!! Hope you have a fun weekend and a great holiday next week!!!
Hello,
Those are neat Hanukkah activities! I have been enjoying your posts lately and just was wondering if you’ll have an end of school year post or how your Sonlighting has gone this year? We finish our Week 15 tomorrow and take two weeks off for Christmas, then back to school. I am ready for a break, but I do love teaching my kids, and I love your school posts. Will you do one soon, pretty please??? 🙂 Thanks, and have a wonderful Christmas! Blessings, Lillian
Hay Lillian, so good to hear from you!!! Yes we will definitely do a “What worked for us post”… And I have a fabulous homeschool series planned for next year, I was already to start it and then I thought…hmmm everyone is reading about the holidays, probably not the best time to be writing about school!!! Anyway the series is all about how to teach different things that we do everyday: Creative Writing, Art, Mapping, Computers… If you have a topic you would like to bring into your school but can’t think how – then now is the time to ask!!! I am really looking forward to it… and I am collecting “data and photographs” and getting the posts lined up!!! Well done on your fifteen weeks – and so enjoy the break!!! Have a fabulous weekend!!!
Wow! Thank you for this post – I have been quite ignorant to meaning of Hanukkah and this is really helpful!
LOVE the candles!
Thanks for sharing on Kids Get Crafty 🙂
Maggy
Hay Maggy, Glad you liked!!! Sometimes it is so fun to just go and learn about something different!!! Hope you are having a fun weekend!!!
What a wonderful post. I would love it if you would share it at my sharing party at http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/2011/12/sharing-saturday-10.html. I’m hoping to feature some Hanukkah posts on Tuesday and would love to add this to my features for the day. Thank you!
Hi Carrie, So good to meet you. Thank you so much for the invitation to join your link-up and the chance to feature. I look forward to seeing your collection of posts!!! Meanwhile hope you have a great weekend.
Thank you!! I will be featuring them tomorrow!
Hi Carrie, Can’t wait to see all the posts up!!! Have a fun day!!!