Travel: Light recreation

Eight activities for a holiday of family fun.

By ANN GOLDBERG
michal negrin 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
michal negrin 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
This year, with a full week of Hanukka from Sunday to Sunday, families have a chance to get out and take a break from the recent tension. There are plenty of indoor places to visit, which will keep both kids and their parents happy for hours.
1. Kedumim: Soos Ve’agala (Horse and Wagon) Your children will have great fun making wooden hanukkiot and dreidels at Soos Ve’agala. And if they’re tired of Hanukka-themed toys, they can choose a different wooden kit and make an animal on wheels, a carousel horse or a variety of other possibilities.
These wooden toy workshops explain how to build a toy, paint it and decorate it. Children can learn a variety of carpentry techniques under skilled tutelage.
In the professional workshop there, they can make wooden rocking horses, and the tour of the carpentry workshop includes an explanation of all the machinery and how it’s used.
Finally visitors get to see and sit on the biggest rocking horse in the world – six meters tall – which appears in the Guinness Book of Records. A video will also explain how Soos Ve’agala’s Ofer Mor built it.
The workshop is open Sunday to Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. All these activities are suitable for children aged four to 12. You must register in advance to join a workshop at (09) 899-0909 or 054-471-7286.
2. Modi’in area: Keyad Hadimayon The free translation of the name of this delightful pottery workshop in Shilat is “as far as your imagination takes you,” which is a good way of describing this drop-in Hanukka workshop. Children can choose a piece of unpainted pottery and decorate it using a variety of tools, such as stencils, stamps and sponges. It will then be glazed and fired for them.
During Hanukka, the workshop is open from Sunday to Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. If a group wants to work together, it should book in advance, but it’s possible just to drop in and enjoy yourself. There are also clay workshops that give you a real taste of pottery making, getting your hands muddy as you work the clay into shapes and designs of your choice. During the week of Hanukka, these take place from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. To book any of these workshops, call (08) 929-8740.
3. Netanya area: Sarina Chocolates It’s a rare child – or adult – who doesn’t like chocolate. So what could be more fun than making your own chocolate dreidel, chocolate hanukkia, Hanukka gelt (coins), or even regular truffles and individual chocolates of various shapes? Sarina Chocolates in Ein Vered is holding Hanukkathemed workshops, although it’s possible to visit and join a workshop the whole year round. While you’re there, you can also visit the climate-controlled hothouse where some of the only few cocoa trees in the country grow, and see a film about chocolate – as well as tasting a fair bit, of course.
The visitors’ center is open Sunday to Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visits must be booked in advance at 077-525-5370.4. Bat Yam: Michal Negrin You might assume that it’s mostly girls who visit the Michal Negrin House in Bat Yam, but according to Sharon Gevirtzman, director of the visitors’ center there, many young boys, fathers and husbands are among the most enthralled visitors.
Walking into the gallery is like entering a world of magic with artistic creations from another era. Visitors get to see how a design or an idea progresses until it becomes a finished product like the ones in the Michal Negrin stores all over the world.
A short film tells the story of Negrin’s company, and then visitors take a guided tour of the gallery, workshop and factory where the jewelry and fashion products, miniatures, dolls, chandeliers and other items are designed and produced.
The tour ends with coffee and cake and the chance to purchase items in the store.
Tours should be booked in advance at (03) 555- 3326. The tours take place from Sunday to Thursday and last an hour and a half. The first tour is at 9 a.m. and the last leaves at 3 p.m. If you don’t have time for a tour, you can visit the gallery without prior booking.
5. Hadera: Orot Rabin Electric Power Station You just switch it on, and there it is – light and heat. Though the suffering that many Americans recently endured following Hurricane Sandy, when some were without power for days or even weeks, has led people not to take flowing electricity for granted, most still don’t know how it really works.
A trip to the visitors’ center at the Orot Rabin Electric Power Station in Hadera will give you a pretty good idea of what makes electricity flow – and what makes it stop, as well.
Visitors tour various sections of the power station, get a bus ride to the end of a long pier and watch the coal being unloaded from a ship. A visit to the Hadera station is also a lesson in ecological awareness, as visitors can see just how much care the plant takes not to pollute the environment and to recycle all the waste produce. The visit is free of charge but must be booked well in advance at (04) 624-1063.
6. 128 Ibn Gvirol Street: The Tel Aviv Art Studio Natasha Miller Gutman has brought her art-teaching expertise and experience from South Africa to Tel Aviv. Her general focus is on the individual student’s talents and needs, encouraging free expression in drawing, painting and crafts. She holds classes for adults and children all year, but during Hanukka there will be a three-day workshop from December 12-14 for children six and up, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. To join a group, call 052-786-3483.
7. Shadmot Devora: Dvorat Hatavor bee farm During the week of Hanukka, in addition to teaching all about bees and the honey they produce, Dvorat Hatavor will hold activities around the theme of candles and the many ways of making them.
Of course, one of the ways is forming them out of beeswax, and visitors can see the whole process of retrieving the wax from the bee. There will also be honey chocolate doughnuts and herbal tea, and a look at how silk is made (Dvorat Hatavor is the only active silk farm in the country).
Dvorat Hatavor is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the last tour at 3 p.m. Call in advance, at least on your way, to ensure joining a tour: (04) 676-9598 or 050-563-7645.
8. Bnei Brak: Coca-Cola Plant A visit to Coca-Cola’s factory is not like the average factory tour where you watch bottles going around a conveyor belt. Here you get to ride an exercise bike in one room, try your talent in a music studio, walk through a tunnel to learn all about Coke in Israel, and “chat” with Coca -Cola’s founder. You’ll also discover what it feels like to be a bubble going up and down in a bottle. So be prepared to be surprised, and don’t forget to book in advance: (03)671-2226. Open Sunday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.