Dreidel Fun! Hanukkah for Kids

Disclosure: Daria Music gave me a copy of this book free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

As part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs Hanukkah for Kids Series we decided to explore dreidels with the help of Daria Music's Dreydel (Dreidel) Song and Game Activity. 

In Daria's packet there is a coloring page, the song music and the rules to play the game. Hazel loved coloring the dreidels on the coloring page.

 We also have both been singing the Dreidel Song. 


Of course the thing to do is to play the game. I picked up a package of cheap dreidels at Target for a dollar. Hazel of course wanted to play with the pink one.

  The one problem with our cheap plastic dreidels is that the words were hard to read. I went over some of them with a black Sharpie marker to make it easier.

 We used beads to make our bets since we have so many. We brought two measuring cups to hold them, but really needed a third for the pot.

 We also of course read some books from the library on dreidel and Hanukkah.

 I have not read The Dreidel That Wouldn't Spin by Martha Sief Simpson because the library network has not gotten it to me yet. It was the one I most wanted to read since it is published by Wisdom Tales Press and I always love their books. The others however share a bit about Hanukkah and/or the game of dreidel. Did you know the dreidels in Israel have a diffrerent side than the ones everywhere else? Since the Hebrew words stand for "A miracle happened there," on the dreidels elsewhere, in Israel the have the words for "A mircale happened here." Dreidels also supposedly were a way for the Jews to study the Torah during the reign of Antiochus. In 168 B.C.E. he outlawed the Jewish religion. Anyone found practicing it would be killed. Jews would gather in the alleyways and study, but if the Syrian-Greek soldiers came they would pull out their dreidels and claim to be just gambling (which was legal). Another version I read said the words on the dreidel were helping teach Hebrew to the kids. 

It seems as if this Hanukkah game has quite a history in itself. The dreidel has many cousins throughout history around the world. There are many combinations of dice and tops. It is fun to play dreidel and fun to explore. Hazel keeps asking why we don't celebrate it since Jesus was Jewish. We talked and read about the story not being in the Bible.  

Next year Hazel wants to explore latkes! She thinks the pictures in the books look good. For this year we will continue to have fun with our dreidels. Make sure you check out the rest of the posts in this fun series and learn more about Hanukkah.