Jewish Holidays

Working at a Jewish Day School has given me such a great opportunity to learn about Judaism and Judaic culture. I enjoy helping the students celebrate their religion and culture through art. Here are some of the fun projects we created together for holidays.

We made apple prints and cut out whales and Jewish stars for our High Holidays banners. Unfortunately, I did make a mistake gluing down the Hebrew letters for the "Shana Tova" blessing on the Rosh Hashanah banner. A good reminder to double check before you glue!

For Channukah, each student designed a lion, dreidel or Torah scroll to add to our display.

For Tu B'shvat I cut out this tree shape from newspaper, and students used their trash from lunch to cut out leaf shapes with ideas about how to save energy written on them. The leaves were added to the tree to create a great community project!

We also invited 4th and 5th graders from other local schools to join us for a special Tu B'shvat celebration. In groups, students worked together to create 8 stepping stones for each school's garden. Each set included a nameplate stone to commemorate the occasion as well as a stone for each of the 7 fruits (pomegranate, olive, wheat, barley, grapes, figs, and dates). 

For Purim, the Kindergarten Artists made unique versions of the characters from the Scroll of Esther.

 For Yom Ha'atzmaut, we gave each student from Kindergarten to 8th grade an opportunity to sketch out ideas for our new school mural. It was a fun event! The Middle School Enrichment class complied all of the best ideas into one amazing mural. The final masterpiece is still a work in progress.

For Jerusalem Day, everyone pitched in to decorate our gallery! The Kindergarten Artists made "Stained Glass" Jewish Stars using what they had just learned about the color wheel. 2nd Grade Artists recreated Jerusalem's Coat of Arms using symmetry block shapes. 3rd Grade Artists made mixed media pieces of fireworks lighting up Jerusalem's sky. Everyone else pitched in to make Israeli flags, colorful pinwheels, and some even brought in pictures of their family visiting Israel.