Join CSMA in celebrating Hanukkah with a simple, fun family project! According to Tomer Noyhouzer, Ph.D Hanukkah is the eight-day Jewish festival of lights that celebrates the Maccabees’ rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its defilement by the Syrian Greeks in 164 BCE. “Some people see Hanukkah as a celebration of religious freedom, whereas others see it as a triumph of tradition over assimilation,” he says. “For others, it is simply an opportunity for festivity during the winter solstice.”
During the holiday Jewish families light candles in the Menorah (Hanukkiah in Hebrew), eat fried foods, such as latkes and jelly donuts (called sufganiyot in Hebrew) and play with a dreidel (Sevivon in Hebrew) – a four-sided spinning top marked with a different Hebrew letter ( נ – nun, ℷ – gimel, ה – hay and ש – shin) on each side. The letters on the dreidel are the first letters in the Hebrew phrase “nes gadol haya sham” which means “A Great Miracle Happened There (in Israel).” The winner of the game receives chocolate gelt or coins.
Make your own spinning top… in mobile form! If you enjoy this project, check out our art classes for kids and adults.
Materials:
– 1 piece of heavy white paper
– Art supplies to decorate (paint, markers, crayons, etc.)
– Pencil
– Scissors
– Hole punch
– String
Step 1: Paint and draw
Using your heavy white paper, draw and paint both sides of the paper to create any design you would like. If using paint, let your paper dry completely and then paint the other side of the paper. Here we used watercolor and a crayon.
Step 2: Draw an outline of a dreidel
Fold your paper in half. With a pencil draw a small vertical rectangle, a large rectangle and a right triangle, then erase the lines within the shape of the dreidel. Try to make it as tall as your paper.
Step 3: Cut out a dreidel
Carefully cut out your dreidel. You should now have one large dreidel.
Step 4: Create mobile pieces
Fold your large dreidel in half, then draw a large rectangle and right triangle and erase any lines within your shape, as you did in step 2. Draw another smaller similar shape within your previous drawing. Cut along your newly drawn lines. You will now have three pieces.
Step 5: Arrange your mobile
Now that you have three pieces, keep pieces A and C, arranging piece C within piece A.
Step 6: Punch holes
Using the hole punch, make three holes as shown below, making sure it is along the fold mark.
Step 7: Tie mobile together
Use string to tie each piece together and you have created a dreidel mobile, just in time for Hanukkah!
What other colors could you use? What other shapes can you create and use?
Created by Mor Moria-Shipony
