Hi everyone! I’m an incoming jet trying to compile some possible ideas for cultural activities. Since I have both Christian and Jewish people in my family it would be fun to introduce the kids not just to Christian holidays but to Jewish ones as well. Does anyone have any activities they’ve tried out related to Jewish holidays or culture, preferably ones for elementary and junior high aged kids? Thanks in advance!
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I’m also a new alt but am a Jew and this was my idea that I’d be more than happy to share: for chanukah I’m planning on getting enough dradels for small groups and then buying gelt and having the kids play the game like we do at temple. It should be fun for them (with the chocolate prizes) while teaching about our culture
I don’t unfortunately, but hello fellow Jewish alts!
Jewish former ALT here! I don’t have anything that worked (the kids truly didn’t care about anything other than Christmas during that time), but I wanted to say good luck! I hope you find something!!
I always do a more general winter quiz and then the dreidel game. The students have had so many Christmas lessons by then, I don’t even bother.
I have a simple powerpoint I used to teach my students the rules. I used ohajiki (little plastic counter chips) instead of gelt. I made paper dreidels myself because I wanted the majority of the class time to be for playing, but you could have the students do it if you get two class periods (or just buy them online). I found the best online template (after lots of trial and error) and also wrote up an explanation in English+Japanese, which is great for giving to your JTE. Message me if you want the link to all the materials!
I don’t celebrate Christmas (or any Christian holidays) so I can’t answer a lot of questions for them about it (A few weeks ago, my JTE asked me to talk about Easter and it was so awkward lol). Buuut, since I’m Jewish, I’ve talked about that a few times in JHS classes!
– I made a short presentation about Purim and called it my “favorite festival” (a lot of students ask what my favorite American festival is… I’ve settled on this one as my answer). Showed them pictures of hamantashen and told them a bit about the story. Also wore a silly hat.
– I talked to my students about my Bat Mitzvah when I did my self intro. Showed pictures of my family and myself when I was their age.
– Not necessarily a class activity, but I’ve talked to a few students and teachers about Passover. They found it pretty interesting! Some of the students took a picture imitating the famous “The Last Supper” painting, so I was telling them about how it was a passover seder.
– This year, I’m going to make a short culture presentation about Rosh Hashana. Since it’s a small school, I want to see if a can maybe eat some apples during school lunch to celebrate… but that might be difficult! I’ll also talk about the Hebrew calendar a bit since they find it interesting.
– Also not a class activity, but I’ll be fasting on Yom Kippur. I do this every year, but last year I wasn’t in school. We’ll see how that goes since I’m usually with my students during lunch!
– Hanukkah! My Hanukkah lesson was a ton of fun. I explained the holiday a little (Maccabees, festival of lights, fried food, etc.) and taught them some Hebrew (the “ch” sound was interesting!). Then, we played dreidel! We used buttons (Daiso) instead of gelt since I couldn’t bring chocolate. This year, I’m going to try to join a home ec class around Hanukkah to see if we can make latkes or something.
– When talking about travel or any world culture things, I try to include Israel or other Jewish cultural things in the activity. The students didn’t even know what/where is Israel before, but now it’s become a bit of a running joke in some of my classes.
– For my ES classes, I wasn’t about to talk much about Jewish holidays due to the students (and the teachers’) English level. But, we made holiday cards and I had a bunch of winter-themed shapes the could color. It made for some interesting cards lol
i don’t have anything helpful to add as i’m also an incoming ALT but i love this thread and am so excited to hopefully get to teach some jewish culture tidbits this year <3
I’m not Jewish myself, but in elementary school I remember spinning the dreidel and eating those chocolate coins which was a ton of fun. I feel like the kids would love that here!
I teach high school, but I love bringing dreidels to English camps as my “game activity” for challenge hunts. I usually throw on klezmer and ladino music and make it a whole scene. I also use leftover Singaporean and Korean coins to gamble with instead of gelt :D.
One thing to be careful of is to emphasize that you’re teaching your ethnicity and culture and not necessarily the religion as the legality around teaching religion here is a big grey zone to a no zone.
Here are some things I’ve done, as I have both Jewish and Christian heritage too. Note that I have a reaalllllly high level base school so I can have conversations a lot with the kids as my activities.:
* I’ve done a lesson where I teach about my favorite cultural festival (I did Rosh Hashanah) and then had the kids share with me their favorite Japanese festival. It was a really fun exchange, and I baked one of my schools some challah in a bitty oven.
* I’ve taught kids Yiddish phrases and words, the “ch” sound is really fun to teach
* With students around class I’ve been open about my interest in Jewish languages – so just in general when they ask me about where I want to travel and things I want to learn I’ll say things like “I’m fascinated by the Jewish diaspora culture of Spain and Morocco and would like the learn the languages and lives of the people that lived there.”
* During periods where teachers have asked me to teach explicitly Christian holidays like Easter I’ve instead asked if I can research other holidays around the world and present ones from other cultures. So not necessarily Jewish or focused on Jewish ethnicity, but I’ve done things like present festivals from different Native American nations, to a lesson on south american festivals, to having kids do research projects on festivals around the world
* I like to wear pomegranate and ayin hara jewelry for kids to ask about 😀