In making a Hanukkah or Chanukah crafts collage its always good as  I often do to give the children an idea of some of the symbols of what they will be using as a base for their collage or other artwork.

When I give collages it is 99% of the time done cafeteria style where the children get to choose the items they like to create with.

Here are just some of the materials that were used for the children to choose from.

As it is a Hanukkah collage I assumed most of the children would be making Menorahs so I prepared in addition to the ribbons, crafts sticks, construction paper, aluminum foil etc. a tray of flames out of different materials and sizes. (only using yellow and orange)

This is really what educational arts and crafts is about. Giving pieces of the craft or art you want the children to create along with real live displays or pictures for inspiration.

Once the children see what is provided they can choose to use them from the variety provided or do something totally different.

This is quite different from copycat arts and crafts where the completed menorah would be held up for the kids to copy or in process only arts and crafts where the kids may be told to may a Hanukkah collage with no other direction.

Once the children have their large tagboard they are free to collect from the materials what they need and can create their own Chanukah pictures as they did below.

Each child used their own creativity to create their own Hanukkah collage.

The blue one was colored in with great concentration to add color to the artwork and the child who did the dreidel inside the gift box did so by adding each piece of the box and dreidel with separate pieces of ribbon.

Below was a way that a child learned to extend her artwork.

This child painstakingly worked on creating tiny little flames in two tones for her menorah on the windowsill .

She was finished but didn’t know how and what to add to it.

I asked her “If this is in a window are we looking at in from inside or outside?” She said it was a view from outside.

So I asked her what she could do to make us be able to tell that we are looking at her window from outdoors and this is how she finished it up.

Just a simple question helped her take her artwork to a greater creative level.