With a bunch of five to seven year olds I knew I needed a fun, but easy Hanukkah party for my classroom to celebrate the holiday this year. And because I’m their teacher, it also had to be educational and meaningful. I came up with the following plan and we all had a great time!
This arrangement could totally work for a home party too–invite over some family and friends and infuse your Hanukkah party with fun and learning!
This plan can totally be a pick-and-choose too–take whatever elements work for you! Your choices may depend on the age of your kids, the length of time you want to dedicate to the party, and what activities interest you the most.
What You’ll Need
- The Maccabees & The Hanukkah Story Skit *Access a copy of the skit here or write your own
- Skit props (optional): robes
for all the characters, a crown
for King Antiochus, an idol (we used my kids’ Raggedy Ann doll)
- Traditional Hanukkah food (latkes, sufgayinot)
- 3 tables or other surfaces to work on
- dreidels
that can be made or decorated
- Decoration supplies
- Hanukkah greeting cards
- Dreidels
that can be played with (and can be taken home as a favor–easy and fun idea!)
- Gelt or other dreidel counters
- Dreidel instructions, if needed
- Hanukkah bingo game and counters
- Hanukkah song playlist
for all the characters, a crown
for King Antiochus, an idol (we used my kids’ Raggedy Ann doll)
that can be made or decorated
that can be played with (and can be taken home as a favor–easy and fun idea!)Putting It Together
The Skit
Instead of reading another Hanukkah story (we did that our first lesson on Hanukkah), after our Boker Tov welcome song we started off the class with a Hanukkah skit in which all children got to participate. It was important for me to review the actual Hanukkah story with the children. I wanted them to know the main characters (Judah Maccabee, the Maccabees, and King Antiochus). Another goal was to have them to understand why we call this holiday the miracle of oil. I also like it when I can have all my students participate, even if the parts are small. The skit is short and obviously leaves out a lot of the story, especially some of the historically accurate pieces that have been the subject of many recent articles. So it’s not perfect, but it hits the main points of our objectives for the class.
To make the skit more fun you can add props (listed in the pdf), backdrops/scenery, etc. Or you can do it barebones. Either way, the kids will love getting the chance to act. And for this skit, even the minor characters (Syrian-Greek army and the Maccabees) had a fabulous time because they got to run around and roar at each other. It was the perfect way to start class and get our wiggles out after sitting through morning service!
Selecting Volunteers
For all the skits I do in my classroom, I select student volunteers to act as the main characters by using popsicle sticks with their names on it. I randomly choose a popsicle stick each time I need a volunteer and ask that student if they would like to perform that part. They’ve always said yes :-). Once they’ve volunteered, their stick goes in the “done” pile until we’ve cycled through all children. In this way all the students feel they have an equal opportunity to perform.
How We Perform With Young Children
Most of the students in my class cannot read, or at least not fluently. The way we do skits in our class is to have the grown ups (the teacher and madrichim) read all the parts. The student volunteers then act out what we read, sometimes needing a nudge/guidance/reminders. It’s cute and totally works. Torah Alive! has a ton of amazing skits written out for torah stories. If you’re wanting to incorporate torah stories in your classroom or at home, I highly recommend this curriculum. But for Hanukkah I created the skit myself. The children absolutely loved it! Check it out–I hope your kids love it too!!
The Feast
What Hanukkah party wouldn’t be complete without a feast? In my class, I sent out a signupgenius to the parents and these generous parents brought traditional Hanukkah items (latkes, sufganiyot, applesauce, sour cream) as well as some other tasty treats (strawberries, oranges, and cupcakes).
We first practiced the special Hanukkah candle blessings. These kids already knew the first part of the blessings because we say them every week for kiddush, but we practiced the rest of the blessings in a repeat after me fashion. Each child was able to take home a blessing sheet to use with their family during the holiday.
After the feast, the kids had recess and got to run off some of that sugar!
Station Rotations
We divided the students up between the three tables. Each table hosted a different activity: 1) dreidel decorating and Hanukkah greeting cards; 2) dreidel playing; and 3) Hanukkah bingo. The students worked on each activity for 15 minutes, then rotated to the next table and activity.
Table One: Arts and Crafts!
Dreidel Decorating
We ordered our wooden dreidels from Benny’s Educational Toys. But you can get them from many places, or even make them! There are tons of cute ideas on Pinterest, like these. We used crayons to decorate our dreidels. I had the dreidel symbols ready on a sheet for the children to check. It was a super fast and easy craft but each dreidel was unique and the kids loved having this keepsake to take home.
Decorating and spinning, of course, because who can resist a good dreidel spin?!
Hanukkah Greeting Cards
Since the dreidel decorating didn’t take as long as the other stations, I printed Hanukkah greeting cards that the kids could work on after they finished decorating their dreidels. They actually loved these simple cards. If you had the time and inclination, you could definitely put together the supplies to create Hanukkah cards from scratch. But either way, it was another way to share the Hanukkah spirit.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, a lot of my students come from interfaith families, or are one of a few Jews in their secular schools. They love having a safe and comfortable space in synagogue and religious school to be Jewish. Little things like holiday greeting cards remind them that all these other friends in their class are Jewish too. Getting to send these cards to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins helps too!
Table Two: Dreidel Game
Every kid looks forward to playing dreidel during Hanukkah. We gave each child their own dreidel to take home (they were super happy about this!). We also gave them a dreidel instruction sheet to bring home. They got to play the game with their friends. Gelt or other counters (we used blue and white tiles) can easily be used as the counters. These kids were just so happy to play, they weren’t worried about winning any chocolate! And, as dreidel has been used for so many hundreds of years, the kids also had fun reviewing the Hebrew letters while they played.
Table Three: Hanukkah Bingo Time!
My students love Bingo and we’ve used it during different lessons. It’s a great way to learn or review information.
The Hanukkah Symbols
In this case I created the bingo game boards by finding images of different Hanukkah symbols. You will need to find 9 images. The symbols I used were:
- Hanukkiah
- Gelt
- Dreidel
- Sufgayinot
- The Temple
- Maccabees
- Presents
- Jug of oil
- Judith
Putting It Together
Make sure to change around the placement of the images on each board sheet so that the result will be different. Print out your board sheets (if you have cardstock, this kind of thicker paper works best!) as well as one sheet of all the images. Cut out the images on the last sheet and use them to randomly draw the card that’s being played. When each card is drawn, the students put a marker on the corresponding image on their board sheet.
A Great Way to Review Concepts!
With each card drawn, we also reviewed what the symbol meant. For instance, for the Hanukkiah image we asked “What does a Hanukkiah symbolize?” The children responded about lighting candles each night of the holiday to remember the miracle of the oil. It was a wonderful, easy and fun way to review these concepts. And don’t forget, the first to get three across gets bingo! Because the kids always love that part of course!
Dance Party
After the station rotations, we had a super fun Hanukkah dance party. The kids specifically requested this activity and it’s super easy: create a playlist on YouTube or your music player of choice, hit play and let those kids dance dance dance!
Finished and Loving It!
This classroom party was tons of fun and so easy to put together. We reviewed the Hanukkah story, the main symbols of the holiday, and the candle blessings. We ate traditional foods, played the traditional game of dreidel, and each child got to take home their keepsake dreidel. It’s a perfect way to celebrate the holiday in your classroom, or even at home with friends or family!
How did you celebrate the holiday? Did your children’s religious school host a party? Did you have a gathering with friends and family?
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[…] love using bingo games to review concepts. We had a great time reviewing Hanukkah concepts with our Hanukkah Bingo Game during our classroom Hanukkah party. This Tikkun Olam Bingo game follows the same idea. Each child […]