5 Ways to Bring Rosh Chodesh to Your Preschool 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 community, being Jewish, and being 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 a classroom for students ages 3 and up! Here are our five tips for how you can use our family guides to bring a Rosh Chodesh practice to your preschool class:

‍1. Introduce a moon calendar. 

What have your students noticed about the moon? Sometimes it’s big, sometimes it’s skinny, and sometimes it’s hard to see at all. The moon moves in cycles — when it’s big, it will get small again, and after it is small, it will get big! 

Flip through the calendar together. Can students name the months? Do they know what months their birthdays are? Try to find everyone’s birthday in the calendar and mark it. What moon phase is each birthday this year?

Just like we celebrate New Years in January and have the start of the school year in August or September, we also have a Jewish New Year called Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish calendar has its own months with special Hebrew names, which always start when the moon is brand new (a tiny crescent like a little sliver of your fingernail).

‍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.)

This is how the Jewish people knew that it was Rosh Chodesh for thousands of years. To make sure it was really there, they needed two witnesses to come forward and announce to a special council that they had seen the new moon.

Unless darkness falls quite early, or school goes late, your students 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!) 

Tell the students that you want to have a special conversation because it is the beginning of the month. You can sit on the ground together outside if it’s warm enough, or sit in the classroom in a circle. Then, introduce the month’s theme.

For example, the theme of the first month of the year, Tishrei, is “new beginnings.” You could point out that Tishrei is also probably in the first month of the school year. What other things are new for your students this month? Did anyone get a new pair of shoes or a new pet? You might connect the idea of new beginnings to what happens when we accidentally hurt someone’s feelings. When we say, “I’m sorry,” and, “I forgive you,” is that a kind of new beginning?

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 repeating, “New is hard. New is magic,” at the beginning of each new lesson.

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 moment that you can use to ease into transitions and help kids calm their bodies. In the classroom, this can become a moment for the whole class to get in touch with each of their senses one by one. You might call the class together for a five-sense moment at the beginning of each week to start the week off on the right foot.

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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!