Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

And welcome back to another lesson, with me, Miss Sidenius.

Today, we're going to have a go at learning all about Hanukkah and how Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah.

We will even have a go at creating our own Hanukah decoration, which will look really pretty on your windowsill or on a shelf somewhere in your house.

In today's lesson, we'll start by recapping the story of Hanukkah, and then, we'll be learning all about how Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah.

And finally, we will create a decoration called a menorah.

In this lesson, you're going to need quite a few things, we're going to need a paper plate, some paper, some scissors, some tape, and some pens and pencils, or some paints that you can use to decorate your menorah.

So pause the video here, make sure you've got those things, and come back when you're ready.

If you don't have a paper plate, don't worry, you can just use some paper or card instead.

♪ Star word, star word, star words ♪ My turn.

♪ Hanukkah, Hanukkah ♪ Hanukkah is the Jewish festival of light.

Let's find out a bit more about the story of Hanukkah.

So a long, long time ago, hundreds of years ago, there was a Syrian king, who tried to make Jewish people follow the Greek religion, instead of the Jewish one.

The Jewish people did not want to worship the Greek religion, so a small army called the Maccabees, started a war with the Syrian army.

Miraculously, the small army called the Maccabees, won the war.

During the war, the Jewish temple was ruined from the fighting.

The Jewish people rebuilt the temple, and lit a lamp to rededicate it to God, making it a really special place for Jewish people once again.

Now, Jewish people believe that there was only enough oil in the lamp, to light it for one day.

But guess what? The lamp stayed lit for eight whole days, Jewish people believe that this was a miracle and they were very happy.

People celebrate the miracle of Hanukkah in lots of different ways.

Can you think of any ways that Hanukkah is celebrated? Maybe you celebrate Hanukkah yourself, tell your screen.

Wow, it's so lovely to hear that so many of you celebrate Hanukkah yourselves.

Now, on the screen, we have a picture of some candles in a holder, this is called a ♪ Menorah, menorah ♪ A menorah is a candle lit by Jewish people, one candle for each day of the festival.

How many candles can you count on the menorah? If you counted nine candles on the menorah, you were right.

This one has nine candles, but hold on, the lamp was only lit for eight days in the temple, so why are there nine candles? Oh, they use the one in the middle to light each candle, each day, that's why they're are nine, it's not counted for the eight days.

Now, all the things that Jewish people like to do to celebrate are eat yummy food, especially things like latkes, which are a yummy type of potato fritter, or they like to eat yummy food like pancakes and donuts as well.

Jewish people also like to play games like dreidel, which is a wooden spinning top, with Jewish letters on it, referring to different Jewish miracles.

They light lots of candles in memory of the miracle, and some families even give each other presents to celebrate Hanukkah, with presents being given and received for the eight days of Hanukkah, the same number of days that the lamp was lit in the temple.

One of the main ways that Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah, is by lighting a menorah, like we spoke about.

Remember, a menorah has eight candles, one for each day of the celebration, and sometimes it will have an extra one that it uses to light the other one.

We're going to create a menorah today by using the resources that we got earlier.

So let me show you how we're going to do it, first, you're going to get your paper plate and you're going to cut it in half.

Ready, watching carefully.

So when I cut it in half, I'm going down the middle of my plate and remember, I'm keeping my hands well away from the scissors.

And I can ask the parents or carer to help me, if I need help cutting.

So I've got my half a plate, pause the video here, cut your plate in half, and come back when you're ready.

Well, done everyone.

Now, it's time to decorate that plate.

You can choose whatever colour you would like to colour your plate in or paint it.

I think, I'm going to do a nice bluey green colour.

So I'm going to paint the whole of my plate that I cut in half.

Make sure it's all covered, so it looks really pretty.

Again, you might not have paint, but it doesn't matter, you can use coloured pencils or colouring pens as well.

Painting all over my plate, all the way to the edges, and it even creates a really nice pattern around the edges of my plate, where you can see there are some riches in the paper plate.

Make sure you cover the whole thing.

Nearly there, I haven't used too much paint, because I don't want it to dry.

I don't want it to take a really long time to dry, so I've only used a little bit of paint, you can see.

There we go, just doing the very last bits now.

And then, I'm going to put my paper plate to the side and wait for it to dry.

So pause the video here, paint or colour in your paper plate and put it to one side.

Okay.

This part is quite tricky, so you might need to watch very carefully.

Now, we're going to draw our candles.

Now, remember, there are eight candles on a menorah or sometimes seven or nine, so you can choose, are you going to have seven, eight or nine candles on your menorah? I'm going to do eight candles for each day of the celebration of Hanukkah.

So I need to make sure that I count how many I'm drawing as I go.

I've got one, two, three, four, five, six.

I'm going quite carefully, to try and make sure they're all a similar height.

Seven, and I'm just doing a rectangle with a flame shape on the top.

And the last one, eight.

I'm just going to go back now and put another flame shape inside my candle, so that it looks like it's really hot.

Make sure that they've all got the same.

And then, I'm going to count and double check that I have eight candles.

Can you help me count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Good job.

Pause the video here, draw your candles, and come back when you're ready.

Brilliant job everyone.

Now, you can see here, that I have coloured in my candles as well.

I've put some yellow and some gold to make it look like there are lights.

Now, is the tricky part, I've got to cut out my eight candles.

Again, I'm keeping my fingers really far away from the scissors and I'm going very slowly, so that I don't cut in the wrong place.

Going really slowly.

And I'm turning my paper around as well, rather than trying to move my hand with the scissors, it's too tricky.

Here we go, nearly got one now.

This bit takes a little bit of time, but just go carefully and ask a parent or carer to help you, if you need some help with cutting.

And there we go, I've got my candle, so I'm going to cut the rest of mine out now.

Pause the video here, cut out all of your candles and come back when you're ready.

Brilliant.

Now, that all our candles are ready and hopefully our paper plate is dry, we can start to stick some of our candles on.

So I've turned my paper plate upside down, to the side that doesn't have any colour on it.

And I'm turning my candle upside down as well, and I'm just going to stick them on with some tape.

Trying to put them quite close together, because there's not a lot of room on a paper plate, and make sure again that you get all eight of your candles.

So you can see mine, they're quite close together.

I'm already out of room.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight, my last one.

Perfect, they all fit on my menorah.

So let's turn it around and see, wow.

That is the finished menorah.

Pause the video here, stick all eight of your candles on, or however many candles you made, and come back when you're finished.

Well done everyone.

I hope you're really proud of the beautiful menorahs that you made.

Now, I want you to think back to the start of our lesson.

Can you remember some of the other ways that Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah? Tell your screen, that's right, some of the other ways that Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah is by playing games, like the wooden spinning top game called dreidel, giving each other gifts, and eating yummy food.

Well done again for your brilliant menorah, make sure that you go and share it with somebody in your household, a teddy or a toy.

And if you would like to, you can ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational, and with the #LearnwithOak, so that I can see your menorahs as well, I would love to see them.

See you next time everyone.