The Festival of Lights

In a physical, historical, and spiritual way, Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights.

It is hard to appreciate light without darkness, so today we celebrated light (ohr) and darkness (chosech).
I blacked out our windows before the students arrived, and set up our 'brightest' activities.

 The light box with stacking tubes.

 The Lite Brite.

 Bubbles with glow-sticks solution inside.

 The students LOVED it.

 Here they took the flashlight (for shadow puppets) and were exploring their magna-tile creations.

 Loving the Lite Brite.

 Combined stacking tubes with magna-tiles on the light table

 Everyone got a glow-stick. Although this picture looks like a rave, they are actually a Channukiyah, with the shamash lighting each student/light and them holding their stick up high.

 Morah Racheli prepared snack in the dark, with the cutting board on the light box.

And we ate in the dark.

Did I mention I loved it? From a sensory point of view, the experience was phenomenal. The change in sensory input was marked and caused for more relaxed environment.

We had a lovely discussion about what we value in light and in darkness.