Hanukkah Crafts for Kids: A fun and relatively original selection

At the various events that I attend to read my Hanukkah book, An Adventure in Latkaland, organizers often ask for a craft idea that kids might enjoy after the reading. Here are two of the tried and true.

For a non-food craft, I highly recommend the Hanukkah puppets. They are simple and fun to make for all ages - and inevitably, many of the adults in the craft making crowd will get a bit (over) involved as well. While we usually create puppets based on the characters from my book, kids can also create Maccabees, or for villains, soldiers from the army of wicked King Antiochus. Of course, being kids, they might simply come up with their own interesting and creative puppets that have some sort of tenuous link to Hanukkah. Instructions follow. The samples above were created by kids of about 3-8 years of age.

The food-based craft, as you might have guessed from the image above, is an edible Hanukkiah (or Hanukkah menorah). Like the candy dreidls that I describe in a different article, this is guaranteed to lead to a fearsome sugar rush, so be sure to have some energy burning activities to follow! You will find the instructions below. The Hanukkiah in the image above was created by three kids aged 7-9, who enjoyed every second of the activity.

For those who are seeking out a more serious Hanukkah craft that involves a little learning (and quite a bit of fun), watch for my article on Hanukkah fortune tellers...coming soon!

Hanukkah Puppets

For 1 puppet, you will need:

a styrofoam ball

a popsicle stick

a styrofoam cup

a pair of googly eyes

a bit of yarn (for hair)

a couple of pipecleaners (one sparkly)

glue

Optional: fabric scraps, ribbon, cardboard scraps

1. Put some glue on the end of the popsicle stick and push it into the styrofoam ball. If it won’t go, have a grown up make a small slit in the ball using a scissor. Now you have the Hanukkah (or other) puppet head.

2. Decorate your head. Glue on the googly eyes (or draw your own version) and draw a nose and mouth. Glue on some yarn for hair. If you’d like, add a felt kippah or a foil helmet.

3. Decorate the styrofoam cup, which will be the puppet body. You can cover the cup with glue and wrap fabric around it (as we did in the picture) or colour it with markers and add some stickers. If you are using fabric, have a grownup figure out where the pipecleaner arms will go, and make two small cuts in the fabric before glueing it onto the cup. You can also add a cape or ribbon or other decorations…it’s up to you.

4. Push a pipecleaner through the cup (and the holes in the fabric). Now your puppet has arms. Trim the pipecleaner so that the arms are the right length – but remember to leave room to bend the ends into hands.

5. Make a sword out of the glittery pipecleaner (use about 1/3 of the pipecleaner) and a shield out of the cardboard if you’d like. You can attach the shield to your puppet by punching two small holes through the cardboard and pushing the pipecleaner hand through.

6. Cut a small slit in the top of the cup, and push the popsicle stick through so that the head sits on top of the cup. Your puppet will be able to move it’s head from side to side and up and down (with your help, of course!). Make these with friends for Hanukkah – and make up your own Hanukkah puppet show.

Edible Hanukkiah

This is a quick, fun food craft that is also delicious to eat.

Ingredients
(for one menorah)

5 two-bite brownies (you can make your own, if you’d like, using your favourite brownie recipe and a mini-muffin tin)
6 sandwich cookies
9 small orange jelly beans (or red – these are your flames, so you choose)
Icing (store-bought is fine, or you can just make a paste with icing sugar and a few drops of milk or water)
9 toothpicks
smarties or other colourful candies to decorate
A cardboard rectangle – about 11 inches by 3 inches (this can be cut from a shoe box, or any other box)
Tin foil – enough to completely cover the cardboard so that your Hanukkiah base is silver

1.Using icing as glue, stick the five sandwich cookies to your tinfoil base. You can place them in a row, or curve them – your choice.

2.Decide which cookie will hold your shamash (centre or at one side). Then icing glue an extra cookie onto your shamash cookie so that the shamash will be elevated.

3.Icing glue a two-bite brownie onto each sandwich cookie. These are your candle holders.

4.Stick a toothpick into each jelly bean. These are your candles. Then put one toothpick candle into your shamash candle holder and two into each of the other candle holders.

5.Decorate your menorah with smartie jewels glued on with icing.

6.Take a moment to admire your lovely Hanukkiah before you and your friends gobble it up!