Integrating Chanukah throughout general studies’ learning added “an extra spin” all week at BYQ! Although every grade celebrated with Chanukah activities, here are some highlights. The first graders thoroughly enjoyed their special Chanukah-themed activities! The girls spun dreidels and created graphs to show their results. What a fun way to explore graphs! They practiced writing adjectives to describe delicious Chanukah foods and beautiful Chanukah pictures of doughnuts, menorahs, and latkes. Reading practice turned into a Chanukah activity when the girls spun a dreidel that had a consonant blend on each side. They wrote words beginning with those blends on their own paper dreidels. The girls matched flames and candle numerals to their number words and glued them on to a menorah.
Older grades had Chanukah in the air, as well! The fourth graders practiced their multiplication by multiplying two two-digit “latkes” and finding the products. They “lit the menorah” and multiplied the numbers on the candles. Writing their own Chanukah word problems was fun problem-solving practice, especially when the problems featured Mrs. Bergman buying doughnuts and Mrs. Reisbaum buying dreidels! The girls also designed “division menorah,” showing a different way to find the quotient on each candle, including repeated subtraction and dividing with place-value pieces.
The sixth graders drew menorahs on number lines, practicing their negative and positive numbers while following directions about where to draw each part. They also enjoyed Dreidel Olympics, playing dreidel in groups and then cheering on the winners as they played against winners from other groups until one class winner was declared! The Chanukah spirit was definitely in the air at Bais Yaakov of Queens!
