Written by Sammy Morhaim
The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer and we all know what that means….. Chanukah is on its way!
The Jigzi Chanukah Collection is awesome. Here are ‘8 Bright Ideas’ you can use to fire yourself up for some game creation for your child’s Jewish Studies.
1) Light it up!
Using the ‘Answer This’ feature in Jigzi, you can challenge your gamers with which candle they light first on the different nights of Chanukah.
2) Sing along
Use the “Listen and Learn” activity to teach the Brachot, Hanerot Hallalu and Maoz Tzur. Just insert the Bracha and songs, trace them with your finger and record your voice. It’s so simple but very effective!
3) Mighty Maccabees
The story of Matityahu and the Maccabim is so exciting. Create a “Talking Poster” activity. Then, using the pictures and backgrounds from the Chanukah Collection, design your scene. After that record yourself telling the gripping story of bravery and the miracle of the oil.
4) Characters conversations
The “Listen and Learn” activity is great for learning about people and characters. Create a scene of all the story characters and have your gamers tap on them to learn their names and what they did during the battle with the Greek army.
5) Dough-nut Forget
Everyone loves Chanukah food and Jigzi can help whet your appetite.
Why not use the “Matching” activity to learn the Hebrew words for doughnuts, latkes and oil? Then you can save the same content as a memory game, flashcards or even multiple-choice activities…. and print out the cards to play in class!
6) Don’t know how to play Dreidel?
There are so many versions to this ancient game and they’re all fun – check out this example:
7) Chanukah Quiz
For the more sophisticated Jigzi user, you could insert a wordsearch/wordfind with all the key Chanukah words using the following website DiscoveryEducation to improve your child’s Jewish Studies. Simply:
- Create your wordsearch
- Screenshot it
- Crop the image and place on a white background.
- Screenshot again and upload the image to Jigzi
- Use the ‘Anwer This’ activity and highlight the words in the wordsearch for your answers.
See if you can master it!
8) Living Lessons
Use a combination of the gaming features to teach the relevant lessons of Chanukah, such as Jewish Pride, be a light in the darkness and stand up for what you believe in.
With Jigzi, the possibilities are endless – so why don’t you brighten up the winter nights with your very own Chanukah Game?
Sammy Morhaim is an innovative and energetic Jewish educator; his passion is in keeping Judaism relevant and he often lectures on the subject. He is an expert in combining educational pedagogy with technology and has developed many digital games for Jewish learning. He has had practical experience implementing technology in his classroom and in many other school settings. Sammy has two BA degrees, in Humanities and Education respectively, and he is a Qualified Teacher. Sammy studied in Yeshivot Ohr Sameach, Kerem B’Yavneh and Aish HaTorah.
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