Hanukkah Books and Activities

We just finished studying ancient Egypt, Moses, and the Exodus. I thought it would be a good time to take a Christmas break from our World History Unit Study and learn about Hanukkah. This fits in nicely with our study of the Israelites and the Old Testament. I found some wonderful books and crafts to help my kids learn more about Hanukkah. The National Geographic book Celebrate Hanukkah with Light, Latkes, and Dreidels gives a very nice overview of Hanukkah and has pictures with captions showing how people around the world celebrate the holiday. Festival of Lights is another good book which gives a more detailed historical account of the first Hanukkah celebration and the miracle which occurred. We also enjoyed the book Hanukkah by Roni Schotter which is a sweet story of how one family with five children celebrates Hanukkah. This story held my preschoolers attention while the other books were more geared toward children a year or two older.

We have the December Idea Book from Scholastic which has coloring pages, crafts, and activities related to Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holidays in December. We love this book and will be making our own paper menorah and dreidel from the book. In addition, we will be cooking up some latkes to enjoy with sour cream and applesauce. You can find free Hanukkah crafts and latke recipes on-line.

Paper dreidels can be found at Enchanted Learning and DLTK. You can print a paper menorah craft at DLTK as well.

Family Fun has a recipe for latkes.

Hanukkah begins on the evening of December 21st this year. Happy Hanukkah!