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Chanukah Suncatcher

Chanukah is the festival of lights. Create a suncatcher to celebrate and capture some holiday light.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Bowl
  • String
  • Tissues or Tissue Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Chanukah commemorates the miracle of oil lasting for eight nights to provide light when there was only enough oil for one night. Talk about some of Chanukah's symbols, such as fried jelly doughnuts to symbolize the oil and the menorah that is lit every night for eight nights.

  • Step 2

    Have students fold a piece of sturdy paper in half, then, using a bowl or other round object as a template to trace a circle onto the paper. Ask them to make sure the front and back circles align the cut them out.

  • Step 3

    Ask students to place strips of tissue paper inside the opening so they are visible through the holes, then glue them to the inside backing. When the glue is dry, they can decorate the suncatcher's borders with Chanukah symbols such as dreidels and menorahs or words of celebration in English or Hebrew.

  • Step 4

    Hang the suncatcher in a window or wrap it in hand-decorated gift wrap and give it to someone as a Chanukah present.

Standards

SS: Culture: Create, learn, share, and adapt to culture.

SS: Individual Development and Identity: Examine various institutions that affect one's life and influence people's thinking and how they advocate for ideas they believe in.

Adaptations

Chanukah is not the only festival of lights. Have students explore Diwali, which means festival of lights in Hindi and is celebrated for five days by Hindus, and Kwanzaa in which a candle is lit in a kinara every night for seven nights, each signifying a different principle.

Read the story of "How Maui Caught the Sun." Maui is a trickster from Polynesian myth. This story tells of how he "caught" the sun in order to increase the amount of light during the day.