With Hanukkah beginning this Sunday, it seemed like the perfect time to visit Israel, on the continent of Asia, on our imaginary trip. Students learned about dreidels, which are similar to spinning tops. Since we had just worked on this skill recently, students were quite prepared to play the dreidel game. After talking a bit about Hanukkah, showing students a menorah, and reviewing the Hebrew letters (gimel, shin, hay, and nun) on the dreidel, each class broke up into smaller groups or partners and worked on spinning the dreidels and matching the letter to an exercise drawn on a piece of paper. After performing the exercise, a new person got to spin the dreidel. Other than the times children were spinning the dreidel, this activity kept students very active.
The paper in the center of the hoop designates
what exercise to do with each Hebrew letter.
What a great spin.
Here is another good spin. The dreidel will eventually
fall over, revealing a Hebrew letter that the student
must match with the letter on the paper. A
corresponding exercise will then be done.
This student spins and gets the letter "hay."
She and her partner will do blast-offs.
Blast-offs have students slowly bending down to
the ground as they say "5,4,3,2,1." On the words
"blast off," they jump high into the air.
Landing on "shin" means a jogging
lap around the blue line.
This student must have landed on "shin'
because he is jogging a lap around the gym.
Landing on "gimel" meant ten jumping jacks.
Toe touches were required if
your group landed on "nun."
