Conference taveng::bagels

I'm not into scouting but you might try looking the Jewish Catalogs.  The
have alot of craft and activity things about all of the holidays.  For
Chanukah one thing that I remember is making dreidls.

Gavriel
"Either Judaism has something to say to the world or it has nothing to say to
Jews."                                                        - Dennis Prager

    Not an answer - just another question:
    
    How would you explain Chanukah to a class of 4-year-olds?
    
    Do you have any simple craft project ideas for this age?
    
    The nursery school teacher asked me why it is spelled in different
    ways, with a C or H.  Is this a variation in translation?
    

When you pronounce Chanukah you pronounce the "ch" as is done in German.  Since
this sound does not transfer into English you frequently see it (and hear it)
as just "h".  Since the word is transferred to English in pronunciation and
then had a spelling added, you come up with variations on spelling.

.1 applies even for kids that age.  One of the books in the series is _The_
_Jewish_Children's_Catalog_.

Gavriel
"Either Judaism has something to say to the world or it has nothing to say to
Jews."                                                        - Dennis Prager

re: .1


> I'm not into scouting but you might try looking the Jewish Catalogs.  The
> have alot of craft and activity things about all of the holidays.  For
> Chanukah one thing that I remember is making dreidls.

Thanks; this is the first place I steered him (and the Children's version
also) as well as some song books we had in our library.  Looking for
some other stuff if anyone can think of anything.

    Re .0:
    
    I am the Cubmaster of Pack 681 in Bedford, NH and we're having a
    "Holidays Around The World" theme for our December pack meeting
    - a sort of ecumenical response to the season.
    
    Our next committee meeting is Dec. 10. I'll check with our Awards
    Chairperson on what our Jewish scouts might be planning and pass
    it along.
    
    Will that be too late?
    
    Mark

>    Will that be too late?
    
Never too late!  Is there someone I can have my friend get in touch with 
directly so you don't have to be a middleman??  Send me mail (Perbas::Waky)
if you don't want to publish personal info in the public forum.

Thanks!!!!

Waky

    Re .6:
    
    I'll get in touch with the awards chairman and perhaps one other
    person this evening and get back to you tomorrow with some kind
    of answer I hope.
    
    Mark

Suggestions for Chanukah activities.

1.  Find a children's book that explains the Chanukah story.  Read it aloud.

2.  Make latkes (potato pancakes) and fry them in oil.  Explain that oil,
    especially olive oil, is a central symbol in this holiday and we always eat
    oily foods on Chanukah.  (Remember the lamp, and the one-day supply of oil
    that burned for 8 days?)

3.  Make menorahs from clay.

4.  Make dreidls (from clay, of course).  There are many other creative
    ways of making dreidls from various materials.  Perhaps a crafts store
    could help.

5.  Teach cubs how to play dreidl, pass out candy or chips to bet with.
    Teach them what the letters on the dreidl are, what they mean in Hebrew,

6.  Make candles.

7.  Have a local musician stop by and teach Chanukah songs.

8.  Run a trivia game with questions from the Chanukah story.  It can be run
    like $20,000 pyramid, charades, Trivial Pursuit, Win, Lose, or Draw etc.

9.  Take the opportunity to teach your Cub Scouts Menorah safety and good 
    fire prevention techniques.

Synagogues sometimes have good contacts.  There might be a teacher with a
special talent that they could refer to you.

    We used to collect the dreidels' material off the wax dropping down from
    the candles.
    
    Our bets were all sorts of nuts (having different values, of course).
    
    Rememberingly yours,
    
    Chris

re: previous

	I hope this hasn't been covered somewhere else in this conference - I
did poke around a bit.  I am looking for the "rules" to the dreidl game.  I had
them a few years ago but I seem to have lost the paper.  I remember that there
is a pot and each player spins the dreidl and does something depending on which
of the four letters comes up.  If someone could just summarize briefly what is
done for each letter I would really appreciate it.  If there is some significance
to the letter and that could be explained as well that would be great.

Thanks,

Brian Schimpf

The dreidel game is played with a pot of chips, where each player has an
initial stake.  (As a child, I played with whole walnuts instead of chips).

The players spin in turn, and all players ante before each spin.  

The results of a spin:

Nun -		Nothing.  
Gimel -		Grab all.  Spinner takes the entire pot.
He -		Half.  Spinner takes half the pot.
Shin - 		Spinner has to put two extra chips into the pot.

I was once told that the game rules are related to German or Yiddish words 
beginning with the letters on the dreidel: Nichts (nothing), Gans (whole), 
Halb (half), Stell (put).

The above rules are not complete.  A typical four-player game might be played 
with an initial stake of 10 chips, an ante of one chip from each player, and 
winner is whoever has the most chips the first time a player runs out of chips.

    Yiddish not withstanding the letters are Hebrew for Ness Gadol Hayah
    Shum (A Big Miracle happened there).
    
    		Danny

.12

That would be great except that ther is evidence that the game existed among
the Germans of the Rheinland before the arrival of the Jews with the same
rules.

Gav

>  <<< Note 840.13 by GOOEY::GOOEY::SCHOELLER "Fahr mit der Schnecken-Post" >>>
>
>.12
>
>That would be great except that ther is evidence that the game existed among
>the Germans of the Rheinland before the arrival of the Jews with the same
>rules.

	????

	By the way, dreidels in Israel are slightly different. They have
	the letters "nun", "gimel", "heh", "peh", for "nes gadol hayah
	po" ("a great miracle happened here").

don feinberg

re: previous

	Thanks for all the responses.  They were very helpful.

Brian