Chanukah was certainly a radiant time of year. The preschool windows have been aglow with the children's beautiful artwork. We're constantly reminded of the bright lights of the Chanukiyah. The four year old nursery and kindergarten children were so excited to emulate the artist Marc Chagall. They were all familiar with stained glass windows, and were happy to say that they have all seen some form of stained glass windows in shuls. We used transparency film to make our windows. The four year olds drew a representational picture on the transparency film and then they glued colored tissue paper creating the colorful glass effect. The Kindergarten children were given transparency film with boxes printed on it and were instructed to draw something different in each box. The results were remarkable and all of the children were so excited to see the colorful light shining through our windows.

In addition to the windows, the four year old nursery children had a fun time painting with oil. The children laughed at the idea that they were going to use oil to paint when normally it's used for cooking and for lighting the Chanukiyah. The children used Q-tips dipped in oil to draw Chanukah symbols. They discovered that oil stains paper leaving a translucent mark everywhere it touches. Those drawings are also hanging on our pre-school windows.

Besides their stained glass windows, the kindergarten children drew Menorahs. We discussed the difference between a Chanukiyah and a Menorah and learned that a Menorah has seven prongs. The children were introduced to a new artist named Ben Shahn. They learned that he painted a Menorah using different shapes in shades of purple, pink and blue. First the children drew outlines of the shapes they chose to use. Then they colored in the shapes using the same warm shades as the artist.

Also in honor of Chanukah, the kindergarten children had the unique opportunity to draw with candles. Each child was given a Shabbos candle. They were told to press very hard while "drawing" with the candle on paper. This was a particularly difficult task since they could not actually see what they were drawing. After the drawings were completed, the children were given watered down tempera paint. Then they proceeded to paint over the entire paper. Magic! The drawing appeared before their eyes. This technique is called wax resist. The children learned that water based paint repels from the wax and will not stick to its surface, therefore revealing any hidden surprises.