3 fun Hanukkah games your kids will love

With a little creativity, you can provide some fun and unique activities to keep kids happy during your next Hanukkah gathering.

Entertaining children during a Hanukkah celebration seems like a no-brainer: hand them a dreidel and some chocolate gelt (Yiddish for money) and they should be able to play for hours. If your kids roll their eyes at these suggestions, take heart—there are other fun possibilities.

Keep your young holiday guests busy by sending them on a Hanukkah-inspired scavenger hunt. Write several Hanukkah-themed words (like dreidel, Maccabees, menorah) on slips of paper and add them to a bowl. Have one child draw a slip of paper and read the word aloud for all to hear.

Children then must search the house for items that begin with the first letter of that word. For example, if the word is candle, a child could find a piece of candy for their first item, because it begins with the letter C. You can set a timer for a challenging competition or children can play cooperatively to complete each word together. Repeat the game until the bowl is empty.

Turn setting up the menorah into an event children will remember by creating a yarn maze to search for each candle. To do this, you will need nine different colours of yarn (one for each candle). Tie one end of the yarn to a candle and hide the candle somewhere in the house. Then unwind the yarn as you walk back toward the menorah, creating a trail of yarn as you go. Snip the yarn and tie the loose end to an arm of the menorah and repeat with a different colour for each remaining candle.

When children arrive, they can untie one of the strings from the menorah and follow it until they find their candle. After they locate it, they'll place the candle in the menorah and set off to find another. You can make these trails as straightforward or complicated as you like, based on the ages of your young guests.

This activity provides entertainment during both your party and each remaining night of Hanukkah. Draw or print out a jigsaw template on one side of a piece of white card stock to prepare a blank, nine-piece puzzle. When your guests arrive, ask children to draw a picture on the blank side of the card stock. When the artwork is complete, cut out the jigsaw pieces from the template and place each puzzle in its own bag.

When it's time to go home, each child takes home someone else's puzzle as a party favour. At home, children can choose one puzzle piece for each lit candle of the menorah. During each remaining night of Hanukkah, children select another piece from the bag and add it to their puzzle.