Cool Chanukah Activities Online

My annual, non-comprehensive but hopefully fun and well-rounded, roundup of What There Is For You Online.  Enjoy!

From Chinuch.org

So!  With 40+ pages of Chanukah stuff on Chinuch.org, how do you know what’s good?  I have no idea, but here’s some of what appealed to me as I waded through those 40+ pages tonight (true confession:  I stopped after page 36):

 Dreidel Tally Graphing Sheet

Chanukah Matching Game (very simple memory game – I just wasted the last of my printer ink printing these ones out…)

“My Menorah” Hebrew Song – cute and simple original song to the tune of LaKova Sheli  (but you have to know Hebrew)

Simple preschool crafts: Six Interactive Chanukah Crafts

A cute Chanukah Scavenger Hunt which would be good for a party, co-op, or anywhere you want a bunch of kids running around (not here, please!)

Very sweet present-passing group game where kids sit in a circle, learn right from left, hear the Chanukah story AND get to keep their presents at the end!  The Left-Right-Left Chanukah Game is a win-win for everybody… well, except homeschoolers who have only 2 kids around (uses Yiddish terminology and “Hashem” so perhaps not suitable for a secular / mixed crowd, but it could be adapted very easily in any way you liked).

Here’s a set of hands and feet “clip art” that you can attach to pictures of Chanukah symbols to create cute dancing characters.

While most of the older-kid resources require some knowledge of Hebrew and Yiddish, this is a decent fill-in-the-blanks booklet that may have you scrambling a bit along with your kids to uncover the answers.

That said, this Chanukah Workbook - Grade 1 (all-Hebrew) is pretty well done, with very neat Hebrew handwriting (the teacher’s writing is in script, but the examples for kids to copy are given in block print), so if you have some Hebrew fluency, flip through this and see if you can use anything in there (I’m probably going to print some, but not all of it, for Naomi).

Another good choice for older kids, these Alef-Bais Yom Tov Questions have one question for each of the 22 letters of the alef-bais.  The catch is that answers aren’t provided.  I love stuff like this, but usually can’t figure them out on my own, so you may want to do your research ahead of time, or you may have some  lively debates over what the answers are supposed to be… (or blank stares, even worse)

Some of the all-English Chanukah booklets are pretty cloying, but this handwritten one, Chanukah Hi-Lights - An informative and comprehensive handout, all in English, gives a decent overview of the story and is fairly attractive throughout.

From Elsewhere

And now, from everywhere else on the web… where as you can tell, I have mostly been searching for science-related content, because our science has been a bit “light” lately”

A few of my own Chanukah activities from previous years, including a free lapbook (not by me, though).

Exploring the properties of olive oil – a simple kindergarten activity

A couple of decent miscellaneous Chanukah science ideas on this hodgey-podgey page.

A science lesson about fire and burning oil  (this is from Robert Krampf of the Happy Scientist, who has a few more oil- and fire-related experiments and a video about fire at his own site…. I got this free through HomeschoolBuyersCoop.com, but the deal is no longer active)

Chanukah science experiments… a video, with a cute little guy assisting!  (awesome tea bag rocket – must try this one! p.s. just tried it – it works) (the downside is, I’m not sure what some of these have to do with Chanukah… sorry!)

Moving on to some more general topics:

Just as I hit post, I think, this page of Chanukah printables (preschool / K-level) came to my attention.  So I’m reposting with this update!

Flip-your-own cardboard latke craft from Joyful Jewish, where everything is just too beautiful to think about.

Mimi, a printable Chanukah (pig) paper doll who is utterly adorable, from illustrator Carol Baicker-McKee… (Note:  it took some doing to print this nicely because it’s hand-drawn and the background isn’t pure white, nor are the lines particularly dark.  It came out terribly the first time I went to print it.  I fiddled with it a bit to make the background pure white and the outlines more bold for better printing.  However, I can’t legally offer this reformatted version to readers.)

Oh, yeah… music!  You can download a few free non-traditional takes on popular Chanukah songs for free over here.

And here’s a cute video wherein Dina, an animated little girl explains the history of Chanukah.  Part of a series from Chabad.com.  They also have a Chanukah Heroes video which I may share with GZ, who’s going through a superheroes phase.

All in all… lots to keep you busy!  Kind of a glut (glatt?).  If only they had this much stuff for Sukkos!