Hanukkah with kids
✨ Hanukkah activities for kids
Eight nights, twelve ideas. Pick one or two each evening — most take less than half an hour and need nothing more than paper, crayons and a dreidel.
🎲 Play dreidel
Learn the four letters and play with chocolate coins or raisins. Rules and a virtual dreidel.
🕎 Light the candles together
Let children count the candles and place them right to left. Blessings and night chart.
🖍️ Color a Hanukkah picture
A hanukkiah, a dreidel or a plate of doughnuts — print one each night. Hanukkah coloring pages.
✨ Eight nights of kindness
Each night, everyone shares one kind thing they did. Print the chart below and fill in a line every evening.
🔢 Candle math
How many candles over all eight nights? (36, plus 8 shamashes makes 44.) Younger children can count each night’s candles on the chart.
🥔 Make latkes together
Children can wash potatoes, crack eggs and mix; an adult grates and fries. Talk about why foods cooked in oil are eaten on Hanukkah.
🍩 Sufganiyot taste test
Try jelly doughnuts with different fillings and vote for the family favorite.
📖 Tell the story in your own words
Retell the story of the Maccabees and the small jug of oil, then ask your child to tell it back using three pictures.
🔤 Learn four Hebrew words
Candle — ner (נר), oil — shemen (שמן), dreidel — sevivon (סביבון), light — or (אור). The Hanukkah page has a printable word match.
🎵 Sing Hanukkah songs
“Maoz Tzur”, “I Have a Little Dreidel” or the Hebrew “Sevivon, sov sov sov” — sing one after the candles each night.
✂️ Make a paper hanukkiah
Glue eight paper candles and a taller shamash onto card, and add one paper flame each night.
⚡ Run a Hanukkah quiz
Families and classes can play a live quiz from their phones. Create a Buga Live quiz.
Hanukkah coloring pages
A Hanukkah menorah (hanukkiah)
Open and print →A holiday spinning top
Open and print →Hanukkah jelly doughnuts
Open and print →A small jug of oil
Open and print →Frequently asked questions
What can kids do for Hanukkah at home?
Light the candles together, play dreidel, make latkes, color Hanukkah pictures and keep an eight-nights-of-kindness chart. Each idea on this page takes 10–30 minutes.
What are good Hanukkah activities for a classroom?
Dreidel in small groups, candle math, a Hebrew word match and a live Hanukkah quiz all work well and need very little preparation.
Are these activities free?
Yes. All the printables, coloring pages and games linked here are free, with no sign-up.
Explore more: Hanukkah for kids, How to play dreidel, Candle lighting and blessings, and Learn the Hebrew alphabet.