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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Easy Hanukkah crafts for toddlers and kids

As the token Jewish family in both my kids’ classes, I get to be the Hanukkah lady, coming up with craft ideas for the kids to learn about the festival of lights. So I don’t want my research to go to waste. Here are some Hanukah projects you can do at home...or at school!

Make your own menorahAh, many ways to do this. Here are some things my kids did in preschool. This one first used beads glued atop a wooden base. You can also use bolts (yes, the kind you get at the hardware store). The candles are pipe cleaners topped with glitter and glue.


Make a menorah out of thumbprints. This is best done with the babysitter, so you don’t have to watch your child running around with ink on her hands, wondering what else she’s going to touch and whether she’s going to ruin your bathroom towels when she watches her hand.

Edible dreidel – the kids did this in my son’s class. My sample looked terrible (don’t use old marshmallows, and don’t use Trader Joe’s honey-wheat pretzels – they’re too thick).
Take a marshmallow, and write the Hebrew letters “nun” “gimmel” “hey” and “shin” with edible markers on the marshmallow, one on each of four “sides” of the round part of the marshmallow. Then “glue” an unwrapped Hershey’s kiss to the bottom with peanut butter or frosting. Cram a thin pretzel rod into the top of the marshmallow and voila – you’re done!



This is a similar pop up dreidel card, which we plan to do with the second grade at their multi-cultural festival. This idea came from Family Fun Magazine (the Dec 08 issue).



Dori made a Hanukkah stamp out of craft foam or Styrofoam that she carved into. Then dip it on the ink pad and stamp away!

To make an edible menorah, you can put a strip of icing down, and put 9 marshmallows in a line. Then dip a pretzel stick into the top of each other, Not beautiful, but the kids will love it.

1 comment:

  1. Love these ideas for celebrating Hanukkah! If I wasn't so dang lazy, I might actually try one of these out with the kids! ;-)

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