Gotta Be In It To Win It

Bring a chanukiyah into class and ask, “What story does the chanukiyah tell us?” Following the answers that you receive, you can conclude that, in fact, the chanukiyah tells us several stories that we are going to learn about. Alternatively, you can do a KWL (know, want-to-know, learned) activity: Have the students work in pairs and write down a list of things that they know about the holiday. You can ask each pair to present an item from their list to the class. Then, have each pair come up with at least one question or one thing about Chanukah that they are interested in learning more about. In conclusion, return to the information that was raised and see what they learned.

• You can start off by telling the students about the historical background of the holiday. You can base your explanation on the information provided in the Background for Teacher sections of the different resources for this unit. Alternatively, you can translate this Chanukah Diary, which describes the characters of the Chanukah story from the point of view of a girl living at that time.
• If the students have not yet learned about Chanukah, we recommend starting off with the resource Chanukah – The Story of the Holiday. That resource focuses on the well-known story of the miracle of the little jug of oil. Discuss the relationship between the story and the different customs of the holiday: lighting candles, eating fried foods and singing songs like “HaNerot Halalu.”
• The next step is appropriate for older students, who are very familiar with the story of the miracle of the little jug of oil. At this point, they can become familiar with the historical story told in Maccabees I about the Maccabees’ rededication of the Temple after they reconquered it. This story is presented in the resource The Different Faces of Chanukah. As they learn, the students will distinguish between the focal points of each of the different stories and how they are expressed in the customs of the holiday.
• For older students, you can also present another source regarding the miracle of the little jug of oil: the piyyut (prayer-song) Maoz Tzur.

Make sure that the students can identify how the stories of Chanukah are expressed in the customs of the holiday, the texts that are read and the songs that are sung. You can pass out to each student a picture of a candle or chanukiyah with the following statements:

“The Chanukah candles tell me…”

“The story of Chanukah teaches me the following about my own life today: …”

Have the students complete the sentences based on what they’ve learned in this unit.

If you did a KWL activity, go back to it now and see what the students learned.