a day of Chanukah

Today we did HaNerot Halalu with 6 yo and Al Hanisim with 8 yo. I found on chinuch.org a printout, with Hebrew text on one side, and the other side blank.

6 yo highlighted prefixes that he knew, and plural suffixes. Then we sat together and I helped him translate, line by line.

8 yo wrote in as much translation as he could muster on his own. Then we went over, and I added shorashim  for the words he knew. We looked up a few words in the dictionary. Overall, I was quite impressed, both with his skills ( he translated about three-fourths unassisted) and with mine (I only was not sure of a word or two).

We did some journaling. I assigned either writing from the perspective of one of the soldiers in Yehuda HaMacabee's army or any topic of their choosing. 6 yo threw a fit, then wrote two sentences about he does not want to write, wants to have free time and schoolwork is boring. He corrected "schoolwork" on his own, since "school" was one of his spelling words. 8 yo wrote a nice little story. I got my creative writing done, too, so this post might be a bit boring. I like the idea of journalling next to the kids, but it might take a long time till it is all fun and productive.

In the more fun department, we had to get an emergency menorah for 6 yo. He made a beautiful clay one, and painted it, but it cracked two nights ago. So today we made a run to the local Judaica store. They did not have many choices, but I think 6 yo found the one he was happy with.



When we got home, the kids watched Shalom Sesame Chanukah. I have it on tape, and when that tape goes ( or the VCR), it will be a sad day here. Then we set up the candles, and while we were waiting for my husband to get home, we made dreidel art. Basically, we took a tray and put a piece of paper inside. Then we took plastic and metal dreidels, dipped the tips in paint, and spun them on the paper. I was expecting more of spirals, but we ended up with spin art. The kids loved it, even 8 yo who originally claimed no interest.

8 yo's edible menorah in the "snow" 

We are also trying to finish up a wooden model of the Beit Hamikdash, would be nice to wrap it up before the end of Chanukah.