With Hanukkah just over five weeks away, we are so incredibly looking forward to bringing in as much light and love as we can this holiday season, starting with our 2024 Hanukkah Shelfie + Starter Activities!
I set up this Shelfie for my kids Sunday afternoon and I loved watching them explore, play, learn, laugh, and really enjoy all these Hanukkah-themed activities, but also spending time together. I so hope for so much time this holiday season, and into the new year and beyond, where we can be together, enjoying our family time and yes, adding some learning through meaningful play too!
What You’ll Need
- Your favorite Hanukkah books (check out our recommendations here!)
- Your favorite Hanukkah arts, crafts, toy sets, and activities that you already own and/or look below to see if any of ours inspire you to create similar ones!
Putting It Together
Here is the list of activities that I set up. Get inspired or grab whatever of your own! I also plan to add new activities to this Hanukkah Shelfie as we create them.
- Hanukkah Book Box
- Hanukkah 3 Part Cards
- Yummy Latkes in the Pan Number Match
- Waxed Paper Dreidel Suncatcher Lantern
- Fisher Price Hanukkah Set
- Hanukkah Chunkies
- Star of David Lacing Cards
- Get the Latke in the Oven
- Hanukkah Counting Cards + Gelt Ten Frame
- Dreidel Letter Tally Chart
- Tzedakah Box
- Dreidel Glitter Suncatchers
- Felt Rugelach
Finished & Loving It!
Hanukkah Book Box
Every Hanukkah I love bringing down our Hanukkah Book Box, not just because it’s the most amazing way of gathering and displaying all our holiday books, but also because those little hanukkiah handprints totally capture my babies from years ago! Their hands are much larger now (and there’s another baby who never even got his hands on the box since he was born after we made it!) but we still love exploring and celebrating Hanukkah together. And reading our favorite Hanukkah books too! We have a few new ones this year and I just can’t wait for weeks of cuddling and reading time!
The Hanukkah Reading Challenge Bingo is available as a free printable and is also part of the awesome Hanukkah Activities Packet for Early Learners.
Hanukkah 3 Part Cards
Another tradition in our house is to kick off our learning with our Hanukkah 3 Part Cards. I love how these cards tell the story of Hanukkah, the traditions, customs, and sweet celebrations of light.
Our Hanukkah 3 Part Cards available on their own and as part of our Hanukkah Activities Packet for Early Learners.
Yummy Latkes in the Pan Number Match
This is one of the activities found in our Hanukkah Activities Packet for Early Learners. It’s a simple and fun way for the kids to practice counting and one to one correspondence while working with some yummy Hanukkah symbols.
I love how focused my preschooler was as he counted the latkes. As the number of latkes increases, it’s pretty challenging to count as they are not lined up or set in a ten frame. It was a really good practice for him.
And cute and fun too!
Waxed Paper Dreidel Lantern
This Hanukkah I’m really feeling the need to bring even more light into our lives. I’m so excited for these sweet waxed paper dreidel lanterns! I set up the invitation by gluing popsicle sticks in the shape of a dreidel (minus the top handle) on waxed paper. Then the kids used watered down glue to attach tissue paper squares in shades of blue.
Once these dried I glued three together to make a 3D dreidel lantern. Place a battery tea light inside and enjoy the frosted glass looking dreidel, so pretty!
Fisher Price Hanukkah Set
A grandma at the synagogue passed this set down to us and the kids really enjoyed playing and searching for all the Jewish and Hanukkah symbols.
Hanukkah Chunkies
We so love Woodpeckers Crafts chunkies. The kids painted these Hanukkah chunkies years ago. I love setting them up on our shelfie, then move them to our Hanukkah display table that’s in our front room once we get closer to the holiday. Make sure to use our code WithLoveIma5 for a discount 😉
Star of David Lacing Cards
I made these lacing cards years ago and they are such a wonderfully simple activity for kids. It’s such a great fine motor practice, as well as coordination and understanding the pattern of over and under.
If you are traveling for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah, making your own DIY lacing cards is so easy and they would make such great travel activities!
Get the Latke in the Oven
This activity was inspired by a similar set up shared by the Bible Belt Balabusta and is so simple and fun. I made our oven out of cardboard and grabbed our cardboard latkes from our fun matching game on last year’s Hanukkah Shelfie. I found some air pumps in the garage and was so excited for the kids to give it a try. And while we don’t bake our latkes in the oven in our house, I know some families do and really this idea was just too cute to pass up!
We did learn the following: The cardboard latkes had a really hard time moving on the cardboard runway. I grabbed a gymnastics mat thinking maybe the slicker surface would help them slide better. It was just really really hard to move them with the air pump. The kids surprisingly did not get frustrated. They kept trying and sometimes flicked them with their hands. All the latkes made it into the oven!
I think this could be fun to try on our wood floors, maybe with a hockey stick or something else. Maybe a good idea for game night during the holiday itself!
Hanukkah Counting Cards + Gelt Ten Frame
This activity was another fun way to pair a math practice with Hanukkah symbols. We used our Hanukkah Counting Cards (found in the Hanukkah Activities Packet for Early Learners) as the prompts, then counted out the correct corresponding number of gelt (plastic and our special inspirational gelt made years ago by Make It Jewish), placing a single gelt in each section of the ten frame.
Using ten frames are a great way for kids to visually understand math concepts and counting, as are using manipulatives like gelt. I really loved watching my preschooler carefully count each gelt. And I was surprised by how many numbers he now recognizes!
Dreidel Letter Tally Chart
This may have been the kids’ favorite activity of this year’s Shelfie! They loved spinning the dreidels, then coloring in a box for each letter the dreidel landed on. This is a great way to work with graphs, counting, math, and of course, recognizing the dreidel letters and getting in some great spinning practice before the holiday starts!
Of course after I set up the Shelfie and took all my pictures I realized that this chart is not a tally chart, it’s a graph. Oops! Just cross off the word “tally” if that bothers you 😉
The Dreidel Letter Tally Chart is available here as a free printable.
Tzedakah Box
I brought out the big Tzedakah box we made years ago to collect our in-kind donations. As we do most years around Hanukkah, we will add to the box any toys, clothes, food and other items that we want to pass to those who need them. This is a really wonderful way for children to visually see and understand how Tzedakah is not just collecting coins, but actual items that help others.
Dreidel Glitter Suncatchers
We had such a great time making the easy heart suncatchers when we read the book Kol Hakavod that I knew the kids would enjoy making Hanukkah-themed ones too. I even bought glitter (gasp!) for this activity!
And yes, as what usually happens when one uses glitter, pretty much the entire bottle was dumped out. Sigh. I was able to pour most of it back in the bottle. And this super simple packing tape technique really made some sweet dreidel decorations! These are perfect for your window or holiday table!
After we made ours, I added string to eight of them (can you guess why I chose the number 8 ;-)) and made a little garland that I added to our Hanukkah Shelfie. The Shelfie will stay in the playroom until Hanukkah is over so it’s nice to continue adding decorations, crafts and whatever else we want as the kids continue to see and interact with whatever is on the shelves.
I added one sweet glitter dreidel to the playroom window and loved how the sun shone through. Light light light, yes please! I think this is also a sign that we need to make some more sweet little glitter dreidels and fill this window up!
Felt Rugelach
One of my favorite Hanukkah cookies is rugelach. For some reason I only make the cookies for Hanukkah, even though they’d be delicious all year round. I put together a little sheet about rugelach so the kids and I could learn a little more about its origins.
Then I helped the kids assemble their felt rugelach (in our case, the dough then apricot filling topped with raisins!) and taught them how to roll it from the wider base to the tip. We attached them with Velcro dots.
These felt rugelach were a lovely way to review the traditional cookie, learn how to roll them without making a mess, and can also function as some sweet Hanukkah play food for imaginary play!
The Rugelach Free Printable is available here. What is your favorite flavor of rugelach?
Getting in the mood …
This year Hanukkah starts Wednesday, December 25th. May we fill the world with light and love through our traditions, our families, our hanukkiah, our crafts, and all our love!
I hope you found some inspiration for beginning your Hanukkah 2024 adventures! Continue with us, either here and/or on Instagram, as we enjoy this beautiful Festival of Lights!
Chag Hanukkah Sameach!
We have a whole page dedicated to Hanukkah, our Hanukkah Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the Hanukkah activities we plan to do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Hanukkah Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, a wonderful way to introduce Hanukkah! And, now we also have all 13 Jewish holidays bundled together in A Year of Jewish Holidays 3 Part Cards.
If you want to go full-on Hanukkah with your littles, you must try our Hanukkah Activities Packet for Early Learners! I am so excited about all the Hanukkah-themed literacy, fine motor skills, math, and play fun!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!
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