It’s Day 2 of our 25 Days of Christmas tradition! If you missed my introductory post – you can catch it here: Chasing Supermom’s 25 Days of Christmas!) Today’s activity is one that is new to our family – learning about Hanukkah.
We started our school day by making our own dreidels! I found a great printable from Printables 4 Kids, that allowed each of the kids to color, cut, fold, and tape together their own dreidel. (And I love that the version I found online includes the “rule” for each of the Hebrew letters you might spin.)
While there are multiple versions/ways to play the dreidel game, these are the rules we used:
Nun: Do nothing
Shin: Put two coins in the pot/center (If a player was running low on coins, we only made them put in 1.)
Hey: Take half of the pot
Gimmel: Take everything
I found packages of the chocolate coins at Walmart, and also found them in the bulk bins at Winco. If you can’t find the “gelt”, you can also use any kind of treats, pennies, etc.
Next, we made baked jelly donuts. I used a recipe from If You Give a Blonde a Kitchen. While Hanukkah donuts are traditionally fried to remember the miracle of the oil, my youngest son’s stomach is easily upset by fried food. These baked donuts however were absolutely delicious – and we didn’t miss the fry at all!
We watched a quick video from Learn Bright, which gave an overview of Hanukkah:
After lunch, the kids drew menorahs. I absolutely LOVE the drawing tutorials found on Art Projects For Kids! They had a step-by-step guide for drawing a Hanukkah menorah.
We made Basil Parmesan Challah Bread for dinner. I used a recipe I had published right here on the blog back in 2015. We halved the recipe linked above.
Once my high schooler got home from school, we made edible dreidels and taught her to play the dreidel game.
These edible dreidels were SO easy to make! We “glued” a Hershey’s kiss to a large marshmallow with peanut butter, and stuck a pretzel stick through the top. Quick. Easy. (And I only had to buy Hershey’s kisses!)
And, I couldn’t possibly teach my kids about Hanukkah without introducing them to the infamous Hanukkah Song. Thank you Mr. Sandler. I can’t think about Hanukkah without hearing your words in my head….for all 8 days. (I found this gem on the SNL YouTube page.)
Have fun and don’t forget to keep checking in here on the blog or on my Facebook page, or on my Instagram page. See you here for Day 3! Happy Hanukkah everyone!
