Celebrating Holidays with My Scouts

So in December, I have ALWAYS made it a tradition to do a holiday party instead of focusing on requirements for the last meeting in December (as well as the last meeting of the year, to celebrate what the scouts have learned and done).

So this December, both my cub scout meeting and my girl scout meeting fell on Hannukah. So we did Hannukah, Kwanzaa and Christmas as part of the holiday learning experience (and marked off some requirements doing it in a fun way).

My cub scouts got the have a holiday feast right after we did the activities as well!

So here is what we did!

Hannukah

It was the seventh night of Hannukah for my cub scouts and the last and eighth night of Hannukah for my girl scout meeting.

They learned about the story of Hannukah and how they thought that the oil would only last one night and lasted eight, hence, eight nights of Hannukah. We even talked about the difference between how it is celebrated in the East and West. Which is that they don't necessarily get gifts but in the West, we tend to give gifts since it falls around Christmas and there is a social aspect to the holidays and gift giving.

One my cub scouts and his dad also had the boys recite the blessing line by line in Hebrew as well as learn what it meant in English. Whereas, my girl scouts, just recited the blessing line by line in Hebrew.

They each got their own dreidel and 10-15 pennies each. Only a few of the cub scouts knew how to play dreidel and none of the girl scouts did. So we taught them how to play dreidel and what all the symbols meant.


Christmas

They got to bring a gift in to donate. We ended up wrapping 13 gifts, one of my favourite numbers, and donating it to the local Fire Department in Takoma Park. I had both my cub scouts and my girl scouts do this.

We get so much during the season, that I thought it would be amazing to have the kids live the scout law out and give a gift to a kid in need. My cub scouts got a requirement marked off and my girl scouts earned a patch doing it!


Kwanzaa

My leader for girl scouts, who also happens to be my cub scout parent, came in and talked about Kwanzaa. She brought in a library book and read parts of it to them and showed them a map of Africa. She talked about how many people in our country today celebrate it and that's always the 26th of December to New Years Day and that it is to hold true to and honour African history and ancestry.

I love the ideals Kwanzaa and next year, I can't wait to have the kids do a craft or project based off one of the ideals.