K–5 Lesson
Teacher's Guide
The Jewish Year
A year of Jewish holidays, told through what families do · Grades K–2
K–5 Lesson
Young children meet the wider world one concrete example at a time: a food, a candle, a song. This lesson introduces Jewish life the same way a classroom already introduces other cultures' celebrations: through what a family does across a year. A child who meets Jewish life first through an apple dipped in honey learns early that Jewish families are ordinary families with their own special days. Teach it the way you would teach the Lunar New Year or Diwali. No belief is taught as fact; the lesson describes practice, what people light, eat, sing, and retell.
The idea a child should leave with: The calendar is the oldest possession Jewish families carried everywhere. The same holidays were kept in Yemen and in New York, and the wheel has been going round for a very long time.
Students learn that Jewish families mark a year of special days, each with its own foods, objects, and activities, and that the Jewish year has its own shape, with a new year in the autumn. By the end, a student can name two or three Jewish holidays and say what a family does on each.
The wheel shows eight holidays in the order they come, with Shabbat in the center. Teach the five bold holidays in depth. The other four are on the wheel too, so name each in a sentence as your finger passes it. The order below is the order on the wheel.
Hold up a real apple and a honey bear. Say: "Before I say one word, guess: what holiday might this be for?" Take three guesses. Then: "It is for a New Year. Not January. This New Year comes in the fall, when school starts. For Jewish families, the year begins in autumn, and the first taste of it is apple dipped in honey, for a sweet year." Now ask: "What special days does your family celebrate? What do you do? Special food, songs, decorations?" Let several children answer. Families everywhere have special days. The apple and honey are props to look at; nobody tastes them.
Tell the class that Jewish families have a year of special days too. Hand out the Wheel of the Jewish Year (Handout A) so children see the holidays arranged around a circle, starting with the autumn new year at the top. Walk the wheel clockwise with your finger. Spend a minute or two on each of the five bold holidays and keep it concrete: the apple and honey, the candle, the costume, the flat bread, the Friday-night loaf. Name the other four in a sentence as you pass them. At Rosh Hashanah, play a 10-second clip of a shofar and ask children to describe the sound. Find a clip in advance; no child blows a shofar.
Pairs. Give each pair one sheet of Holiday Match cards (Handout B). K: hand out pre-cut sets. Grades 1–2: children cut their own along the dashed lines. Say: "Spread your ten cards face up. Find the pairs. Partners check each other: say the holiday, then say what families do." Walk the room and listen for the holiday name and the custom together.
The five pairs, for your reference: Rosh Hashanah · the apple dipped in honey. Hanukkah · one more candle each night, and the dreidel. Purim · the costume and the grogger. Passover · the matzah. Shabbat · the two candles and the braided loaf. The handout prints the pairs mixed up on purpose, so the sheet does not give the answers away.
Same pairs, same ten cards. Turn them all face down and mix them. Take turns flipping two. A pair stays with the child who found it. Stop when the cards are gone.
Back to Handout A. Children color the wheel if they have not yet. K: hand out pre-cut arrows and push the brass fastener through for each child. Grades 1–2: children cut the arrow from the bottom corner and push the fastener through the dot on the arrow, then through the dot in the middle of Shabbat. Help open the prongs flat on the back.
Say: "Spin your arrow. Wherever it lands, that holiday is coming. Tell your partner one custom families keep on it." Two or three spins each. Then gather the room and say: "Here is the secret of the wheel. It never ends. When a family finishes Shavuot, the next holiday is already on its way, and it has been going around like this for a very, very long time." On the board, for the children who can read it: The wheel goes round, and it has been going round for a very long time. The spinner goes home with the vocabulary card, for families to look at together.
