How to Make a Chanukah Board Game

Add a new tradition to your Chanukah celebration this year by presenting the family with a handmade Chanukah board game. In playing the game, family members will encounter both traditional practices for the holiday and refresh their minds about the Chanukah story.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A 2’ by 3’ piece of light blue foam core boardA yardstickA blue permanent marker, wide tipAssorted colored permanent marker, thin tipsA different dreidel (see Section 2) for each player

Make the game board.

1. Model the Chanukah Game Board after a typical board games like Monopoly. In other words, there will be a border of squares all around the edges of the board. Use a pencil and a yardstick to create these squares; approximately 2 1/2 inches is a good size for the squares as it allows you plenty of room to write inside. Once you’ve gotten the squares drawn in pencil, go over the lines with a wide blue marker.

2. Fill in the board. In the center, write the following: “The Chanukah Game—Be the First to Celebrate Eight Nights of Chanukah.” Fill in the squares on your board. Each space needs to have some kind of message. One square will be designated as “Light the First Candle” and the last square will read “Light the Last Candle.

3. Continue filling in the squares which show the other candles being lit. The rest of the spaces should have messages which reflect something about the holiday. For example: --Antiochus shakes his fist: go back 2 spaces--Judah Maccabee is determined to do what’s right: ahead 3--You ate too many latkes: go back 3 spaces--Chanukah starts tomorrow; you can’t find the menorah: back 4To get ideas for what to write in the squares, check out the following site: www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm

Resources

• Jewish Holiday questions answered