Jewish History Homeschool Unit Study

Last spring, we went to two live musical productions of “The Sound of Music”. We really enjoyed the performances! When one of the theater companies announced that their next performance in the fall, would be “Fiddler on the Roof”, I immediately bought tickets. One thing led to another, before we went to see the live play, I wanted to watch the movie, I stumbled upon a unit study on celebrating Biblical feasts, and then there was an American girl series about a Jewish immigrant so I wanted to read those. By the time December rolled around, it was clear that one of my homeschooling themes of this academic year was Jewish history. I am ethnically part Jewish and my husband is also, so it was a fitting history lesson for our children. Besides watching the movie and going to see the live production of “Fiddler on the Roof”, we read the American Girl: Rebecca (1914) series.

We learned a lot listening to “What Was the Holocaust?”, “Number the Stars”, “I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944”, “Who Was Anne Frank?”, “The Bronze Bow”, and “Uprising” on audiobook with either the Audible app or the library’s free Libby app. Our favorite was “Number the Stars”.

We listened to about half of “The Devil’s Arithmetic” by Jane Yolen but it described the horrors of the Holocaust in too much vivid detail. We stopped listening after chapter 10 – page 84. I used AI to do some research on the book. Based on that information, I used AI to summarize chapters 11 – 18 and then we finished the book by listening to chapter 19, the epilogue, and the author’s note. I should’ve done more research before jumping into this one. Had I known, I would not have listened to chapter 10.

We completed a “Biblical Feasts” unit study by Fully Surrendered. I also bought “Celebrating Biblical Feasts” which was a great resource. We really enjoyed celebrating the Biblical Feasts as a family this year (Purim was a favorite). We will probably celebrate them again next year.

We read a few Hanukkah pictures books during December and these were our favorites:

I purchased these but we didn’t get to them this school year, maybe I’ll mix them in with some other things I’m planning on reading this coming school year:

A nearby library sponsored a traveling holocaust exhibit so we made a trip to see that. It was a series of panels with quotes, photos and information to read. I wish we lived nearer to a Holocaust museum.

This was an impromptu unit study that came about by happenstance. I really liked the idea of stretching out a theme over the course of the academic year. Stayed tuned for our theme next school year!