5 Ways to Bring Rosh Chodesh to Your Elementary Classroom

For hundreds of generations, Rosh Chodesh was an integral part of every Jewish child’s life. Looking up at the moon was how Jewish communities kept track of time — the start of each month, the approach of festival holidays, and (long ago) the times of our pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

Today, some Jewish people say a prayer for the moon to welcome the new month, and some people, especially women, come together every month on Rosh Chodesh to celebrate the new month and feel connected to something bigger than themselves — nature and the cycles of the moon. 

People often tell us that celebrating Rosh Chodesh makes them feel more connected, calmer, and happier.

For kids, practicing Rosh Chodesh — and keeping track of the moon — can help them not just feel rooted in their family’s history and traditions, but it can also help them practice observational skills, feel grounded in a sense of time, and learn key social-emotional lessons that arise with the themes of each month.

We’ve created guides that offer activities for families to practice Rosh Chodesh each month at home: Rosh Chodesh Together: A Creative Toolkit for Families.

These teachings and activities can be easily adapted to an elementary classroom! Here are our five tips for how you can use our family guides to bring a Rosh Chodesh practice to your students:

‍1. Introduce a moon calendar. 

The Jewish calendar is tied to the cycles of the moon — have your students noticed that sometimes the moon is big and round, and sometimes it is small and skinny? Sometimes it isn’t visible at all! Every Hebrew month begins with the first sliver of a new moon that appears after the fully-dark moon.

When you show your students the moon calendar, point out that while the Hebrew months always begin on the new moon, the “secular” months pay no attention to the moon cycle. Sometimes the moon is full on September 15 and sometimes it’s not — but it’s always full on the 15th of Tishrei!

(If you’ve got students who are interested in the details, here they are: The secular calendar is based on the earth’s orbit around the sun, which divides roughly into 30 or 31 days each month. But a lunar month, which is the time it takes the moon to go around the Earth once, only takes the moon 29 1/2 days. The lunar months end sooner than the secular months, so they don’t stay lined up with each other.)

Hang a moon calendar on the wall of your classroom where students can walk up and see it whenever they like during class breaks.

You might give them an assignment like flipping through to find out what moon phase their birthday will be this year.

‍2. Practice moon-spotting activities.

If you have class on the day of Rosh Chodesh, take a little field trip out to the yard. Have all the students look up at the sky and see if they can spot the tiny crescent moon. (It becomes visible right at sunset in the western sky. On the days after Rosh Chodesh, it becomes easier to see earlier in the day.)

You can explain that back before calendars and cell phones, the Jewish people knew that it was Rosh Chodesh because they saw the new moon!

To make sure it was really there, they needed two witnesses to come forward and announce to a special council called the Sanhedrin that they had seen the new moon.

You can play the Sanhedrin, and your students will try to be the witnesses. Unless darkness falls quite early, or school goes late, they probably won’t actually spot the moon with you. You can encourage them to keep trying after school, and report back to you when they find it.

When (at least) two witnesses have successfully pointed out the new moon, you can joyfully announce that it is officially Rosh Chodesh!

‍3. Talk about the theme of the month. 

Each month has a spiritual energy associated with it, which we have adapted in our family guides into kid-friendly themes. (For a calendar with the themes of each month, get this free download!) 

You might introduce the idea of a “theme” by reminding students that different holidays have different lessons for us: Yom Kippur reminds us to reflect on our actions, while Passover reminds us to celebrate being free. In the same way, each month has a lesson of its own.

For example, the theme of the first month of the year, Tishrei, is “new beginnings.” Tishrei is also probably in the first month of the school year! You could ask your students what it means to have a “fresh start.” How is the idea of a fresh start related to the idea of forgiveness?

To encourage discussion and set this conversation apart from everyday instruction, sit together on the floor in a circle, either in the classroom or outside. Students can speak one by one, going around the circle. Students can “pass” if they don’t care to share, but make sure everyone has a chance to share first thoughts before anyone offers second thoughts.

4. Turn intentions into affirmations.

Each month of the Jewish calendar also pairs with intentions (which you’ll find in our free download!). At the end of your discussion of the theme of the month, you might introduce the month’s intention as an affirmation. Tishrei’s, for instance, is “New is hard. New is magic.”

Have the class “repeat after me” the affirmation three times. Then, over the course of the month, return to the affirmation each time it can be used to help overcome tricky moments. 

In Tishrei, this might look like encouraging students to repeat, “New is hard. New is magic,” when they are learning a new skill or subject for the first time — especially if a student is struggling or growing frustrated. 

You might also like to create a special place on the wall where the affirmation of the month can be posted — maybe near where the moon calendar is hanging!

‍5. Craft group activities based on our monthly rituals.

In our full Rosh Chodesh Together toolkit, each month features kid-friendly rituals and activities crafted in partnership with childhood development experts. They help kids get in touch with the themes and lessons of each month through activities designed to engage their heads (thinking/listening), hands (making/doing), and hearts (embodiment/sensory).

The Tishrei activity helps kids create a five-senses toolkit that they can use before new beginnings to ease transitions with an embodied pause. In the classroom, this can become an arts-and-crafts project which, when finished, they can keep in their desks all month. You can create opportunities for sharing with a show-and-tell, and establish a small ritual of pulling out the box at the start of each day or week to get grounded with their senses before class begins.

‍

While some students might recognize Rosh Chodesh as a ritual practiced by their moms, you can remind your class that Rosh Chodesh is for everybody! This holiday comes from the commandment to keep time by the moon, which was the very first commandment we received as a Jewish people. Not only was it a commandment given to the entirety of the Jewish people (not just the girls), but getting in touch with the rhythms of sacred time benefits everybody.

Chodesh Tov!