Candles, Dreidels, and Menorahs!

This week, we wanted to change the rod that hangs over our dramatic play/housekeeping center into a menorah. We paired the children to make the candles. Charlie and  Matthew are using dot paints to make one of the candles. They are giving their hands and upper bodies quite a work out with the bottles of paint!

Laura and Anna are working on the second candle. They are using ads from the newspaper to make their candle. They had a very animated conversation about all the toys as they cut and glued their pictures.

When you come to school on Monday, be sure to stop and look at our beautiful menorah! As the children look for  musical instruments, Jonah sings a Chanukah song as he shakes the maracas! Chanukah with a Latin twist!

The children know about the bone marrow drive for Zach Guillot, so they were very excited about making him Chanukah cards that will be taken to him at the hospital. When we asked them why they were making the cards they said that it was a mitzvah because the cards would help Zach while he was in the hospital. As they made the cards they were working on print recognition and writing skills as they wrote Happy Chanukah to Zach!

Our December calendar pattern is oil/dreidel/menorah or ABC. To review the concept, we had the children sign in by choosing a manipulative to make an ABC pattern.

Charlie chose Magna Tiles to make his ABC pattern. He used several math skills as he made his pattern using one shape but different colors.

Max made his pattern with colored cubes. With an ABC pattern, he knew that he needed three colors to make the pattern. Max chose a red, pink, blue pattern.

Sophia is making her pattern with a math manipulative that has different sweets. She chose purple, orange, and red cupcakes. Jonah is working on his pattern using  Cuisenaire Rods.Cuisenaire Rods are a great visual hands on math tool.

We taught the children a new math game. The children were divided into Chanukah teams. Charlie, Lukas, Sophia. Anna and Jack were the Maccabees.  We made three rectangles on the rug, as targets for the kids to throw in beanbags.  The points you got depended on how close the rectangle was to the throwing line, so either 1, 2 or 3 points per rectangle.

We frequently talked about  being good sports when someone from either team was throwing the bean bag.  The children quickly observed that an underhand throw was most likely to be accurate and that this game is much harder than it looks!

Max, Sammie, Laura, Matthew, James David and Charlie were The Menorahs.

How many points does Laura have? As a class we decided that if part of the bean bag landed in the rectangle, it would count. Using the unifix cubes, Laura and her team added her points. They were very excited about her 6 points. As the children played the game, they practiced  math, language and social concepts!

Jack is the Question Mark helper. The children throw the die and use one to one correspondence as they match the dots on the die to the number on the candle. Then they place the candle on the menorah by matching the number on the candle to the number on the menorah. The children are allowed two throws for this activity. We have taught them that throwing the dice is based on luck, and if they don't make a match it is O.K. This allows the children to focus on the math concepts and to understand that they are successful even if they don't make a match.

A menorah made of children! How do you make a menorah when you have more children than candles. This was a good problem solving activity. The solution was to make the shamash taller. Look at all those smiling candles, as the class worked together to make our menorah.