Come one, come all, play one, play all! You can prepare these carnival booths for a Chanukah party, or do one activity each night at home with your family
The Great Big Doughnut Toss
Chocolate and vanilla, yummy and sweet.
Jelly and custard are always a treat.
Doughnuts are delicious, can they get any better?
With a life-size doughnut toss, you get a doubleheader!
Supplies:
Large swimming tube with a doughnut design
How to Put It Together:
Blow up the tube and you’re ready to start. Station this booth in an area that has plenty of room, with no fragile items nearby that may get knocked over.
Object of the Game:
Players need to toss the doughnut ring onto the person manning the booth.
How to Play:
Players toss the doughnut ring and attempt to get it to land on the person manning the booth. You can decide how many tries each player gets. For a shorter player, standing on a step stool might be helpful.
DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE SIGN HERE!!
Flip the Latke
Make the perfect latke, golden brown and crisp.
One side’s all done, ready to be flipped.
Catch it in your pan, don’t let it flip out,
And you’ll have the best latke without a doubt!
Supplies:
Small frying pan with a hole at the end of the handle
Brown and tan felt, each cut into 4-inch circles
One crunched-up paper towel, napkin, or batting to stuff the felt latke
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Ribbon or string
How to Put It Together:
Hot glue your felt circles together around the perimeter about 3⁄4 of the way around. Add stuffing to the latke. Cut your ribbon about double the length of your frying pan handle. Insert one end of the ribbon into the opening in your latke. Finish gluing your latke closed, securing the ribbon in there with the glue as well. Tie the other end of the ribbon to the hole in the frying pan handle.
Object of the Game:
Players need to flip the latke in the frying pan. They need to get the brown “ready” side flipped up and catch the latke back in the pan with the tan “not yet fried” side facedown in the pan.
How to Play:
Start with the brown side of the latke facedown in the frying pan. Players need to flick the frying pan to flip the latke and catch it back in the pan with the tan side facedown. (The ribbon is to ensure that the latke doesn’t fly too far or keep dropping on the floor.)
DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE SIGN HERE!
Find the Pach Shemen
Supplies:
Plastic cylinder bottle
Water
One color of food coloring
Colored sand or rice
Pipe cleaners
Magnetic wand (can be homemade with a very strong magnet)
Scissors
How to Put It Together:
Add sands or rice to your bottle, filling it about 1/3 of the way. Add water to fill most of the bottle and a few drops of food coloring.
Cut ten 1-inch pieces of pipe cleaner and add to the bottle. Lastly, firmly shape two to three pipe cleaners into the shape of a 1.5-inch oil jug.
Object of the Game:
Players need to find and get the pach shemen to the top of the bottle using their magnet wand.
How to Play:
Shake the bottle and hand it to the player along with the magnet wand. They have to maneuver the bottle to find the pach shemen and then get their wand to catch it and drag it up to the top of the bottle. The sand/rice and the small pieces of pipe cleaner are there to make it more challenging for the players to find and attract the pach shemen.
DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE SIGN HERE!!
Light up the Right Night
Light up the night with the candles burning bright,
But which night of Chanukah will it be tonight?
Figure out the riddle, then by lifting the handles,
You’ll be able to light up the right amount of candles.
Supplies:
9 jumbo-size popsicle sticks
9 5mm yellow or red LED bulbs
9 3v 2032 lithium coin batteries
9 medium size binder clips
1 roll 1⁄2-inch copper foil tape with conductive adhesive
Scotch tape
Weighted base for your candles (I used a full box of fettuccini covered in blue and copper tape)
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
How to Put It Together:
The LED bulbs have two wires, one short and one long. Slip a popsicle stick between the two wires, so that a wire sits on each side of the stick. Apply a strip of copper tape to each side of the popsicle stick. The top edge of the tape should secure the LED wire in place and should be placed close to the end of the popsicle stick, without actually touching the end of the stick. The tape should be pressed firmly around the wire so it can be a good electrical conductor. The bottom end of the tape should end about 1.5 inches from the bottom of the popsicle stick.
Attach a binder clip to the bottom of each popsicle stick. Pick up the handles of the binder clips so the tops of the handles are resting against the bottom of the copper tape. Turn the stick so the LED’s short wire is on top and place the battery, + side up, right under the handle of the binder clip on that side.
You might need to adjust the positioning of the battery slightly until it causes the LED light to turn on.
Hold the battery in place and turn the binder clip’s handle down, out of the way. Using Scotch tape, tape the top half of the battery into place well. Wrap the tape around the other side of the popsicle stick as you go so it will secure the binder clip handle at the back of the stick into place at the same time. Make sure to leave the bottom half of the battery exposed. Turn on the light by lifting up the front handle of the binder clip.
Decorate your base and hot glue the candles on in a way that the front handle of the binder clips can easily be flipped up and down throughout the game. Make your shamash slightly higher by using a plastic schnapps cup or a small block.
Prepare riddles about Chanukah, making sure the questions can all be answered in numbers from one to eight. For example, for little kids, you might ask, “What night of Chanukah was Thursday night?” For older kids, you would make it more challenging by asking something like, “If Rivky had her Chanukah chagigah on Tuesday night of Chanukah, but needed to start preparing two nights in advance, what night of Chanukah did Rivky start preparing?”
Object of the Game:
Players need to answer the riddles by lighting up the correct number of candles.
How to Play:
Ask the players age-appropriate riddles. The player needs to turn up the handles on the binder clips to light up the correct amount of candles to show their answer.
DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE SIGN HERE!!
Coin Drop
Round and round your dreidel’s spinning,
What did it land on? What’s your winning?
Drop those coins in through the top,
And see how many coins you got!
Supplies:
8.5 x 11-inch acrylic upright sign holder with an open triangular base
Double-sided foam mounting tape (1⁄2 inch x 150 inch)
Paper designed for the sign holder
Chanukah-themed stickers or paper cutouts
Dreidel
Plenty of chocolate coins
How to Put It Together:
Print or hand decorate an 8.5 x 11-inch paper to go into your sign holder. Add a few stickers or paper cutouts with a square or two of foam mounting tape, leaving enough room between them for the chocolate coins to slip through.
Tape three to four layers of the mounting tape to the front of the paper, on both the left and right sides of the paper. Slip the paper into the frame before taking off the paper backing of the final layer.
Do a test run by slipping in a chocolate coin or two into the top of the frame to make sure they have enough room to get to the bottom without getting stuck. If the coins make it to the bottom easily, then you have enough layers of mounting tape and your stickers are spaced well, so you can remove the tape backing from the top layer. Press to secure the tape to the inside of the front panel of the sign holder.
Decide how many coins each letter on the dreidel will earn. For example:
gimmel – 6 coins
nun – 2 coin
hei – 3 coins
shin – 1 coin
Object of the Game:
To win as many chocolate coins as you can.
How to Play:
The player spins the dreidel. They receive an amount of chocolate coins based on which Hebrew letter the dreidel landed on. They can’t eat the chocolate yet though! They need to drop them in through the top of the coin drop and only get to eat the ones that roll out at the bottom. After each turn, you can either keep emptying the bottom of the coin drop, or leave the coins that didn’t roll out in there.
DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE SIGN HERE!!
Balloon Game
Guide your blindfolded team member as you try to direct him/her to the correct balloons to pop!
Supplies:
balloons
masking tape
scarves for blindfolding
pins
How to Put It Together:
Blow up balloons in different colors. (You’ll need an even number of balloons of each color.) Tape them to the wall in a tight cluster.
How to Play:
Divide the players into teams. Assign each team a balloon color.
Starting with one team, blindfold one team member and hand them a pin to pop the balloons. Set a timer and let the fun begin!
The remaining team members direct the popper (up, down, right, left). You can be creative with each round’s directions, for example:
Use a different language
Use “north,” “south,” “east,” and “west”
Use the numbers on a clock (12:00, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00)
Use your neighborhood — neighbors behind you (down), across (up), to the right, and to the left
The team that pops the most balloons from their color wins.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 720)
