Hanukkah Games for All Eight Nights, With Dreidel Rules

The best Hanukkah games are the ones that fit after the candles are lit: short, played around the table, and easy to stop when dinner is ready. That means dreidel first, then a handful of games you can rotate across the eight nights, like trivia, picture bingo, a latke tasting, would-you-rather questions and a longest-spin contest. Below you’ll find dreidel rules you can print, a night-by-night plan for Hanukkah 2026, a table of games sorted by age and time, and eight trivia questions written for this article.

One date note before you plan anything. In 2026, Hanukkah (Chanukah in many spellings) begins at sundown on Friday, December 4 and ends at nightfall on Saturday, December 12, according to Hebcal. The first and the eighth candles both fall on a Friday evening, so two of your eight nights are also Shabbat. The plan further down works around that.

Hanukkah games at a glance, by age and time

Game	Best for	Players	Time	What you need
Dreidel	Ages 5+ (simplified version for 3-4)	2-8 per dreidel	15-30 min	A dreidel, 10-15 pieces each (gelt, raisins, pennies)
Longest spin contest	Ages 5 to adult	Any	10 min	Dreidels, a stopwatch or counting out loud
Picture bingo	Ages 3+ with pictures, any age	2-30	20 min	Bingo cards, markers
Hanukkah trivia	Ages 9+, teams	4-30	20-40 min	A printed question list
Would you rather	Ages 5+	2+	10-15 min	A printed list of questions
Latke tasting	Teens and adults	4-20	30 min	Two or three batches of latkes, score cards
Gelt toss	Ages 3-10	2-12	10 min	Gelt, masking tape for a target on the floor
Fold-up paper dreidels	Ages 6+ (cutting), 3+ with an adult	Any	25 min	Printed templates on card stock, scissors, glue

How to play dreidel

A dreidel is a four-sided spinning top. Each side carries a Hebrew letter: nun, gimel, hei (also written hey or heh) and shin. Together they stand for Nes Gadol Haya Sham, “a great miracle happened there.” Dreidels made in Israel swap the shin for a pe, for Nes Gadol Haya Po, “a great miracle happened here.” The Hebrew name for the toy is sevivon, from the root “to turn around” (My Jewish Learning).

The miracle in question goes back to the Temple in Jerusalem. Judah the Maccabee and his followers recaptured it in 164 BCE, cleansed it and rededicated it, which is what the word Hanukkah, “dedication,” refers to. Later rabbinic tradition explains the eight days with a small amount of oil that burned for eight days (My Jewish Learning).

The letters also double as instructions, from Yiddish words: nun for nisht (nothing), gimel for gantz (everything), hei for halb (half) and shin for shtel arayn (put in) (Wikipedia: Dreidel). Kids who don’t read Hebrew yet pick up the shapes within a round or two if you say the action out loud every time the top falls.

Dreidel rules to print or screenshot

Dreidel: the rules 1. Everyone starts with the same number of pieces: 10 to 15 each. 2. Everyone puts 1 piece in the middle (the pot). 3. Take turns spinning once each. 4. Nun: nothing happens. Gimel: take the whole pot. Hei: take half the pot. Shin (or Pe): put 1 piece in. 5. If the pot is odd on a hei, take half plus one. Decide this before the first spin. 6. When the pot is empty or down to 1 piece, everyone puts 1 piece in again. 7. Run out of pieces and you are out, or you may borrow from another player. 8. The game ends when one player has everything, or when the timer rings: most pieces wins.

Rules 1 to 7 follow the basic game as My Jewish Learning prints it, which also notes that rules vary from home to home. That variation is where most arguments at the table come from, so settle three things before the first spin.

The first is rounding on hei. The version above rounds up, so with 7 in the pot you take 4. Some families round down and leave the odd piece in. Neither is wrong; changing it mid-game is.

The second is the re-ante. Some players add to the pot only after a gimel empties it. Re-anteing whenever the pot drops to one piece keeps the game moving, because a spin on an empty pot is a wasted turn.

The third is borrowing. Loans keep small children in the game, which is kind, but they can stretch a game to an hour. With kids under seven, allow one loan per player. With older players, out means out.

How long a game lasts, and how to shorten it

With four to six players and 10 pieces each, plan on 15 to 30 minutes. Elimination games with 15 pieces and generous loans can run much longer, because the last two players trade the pot back and forth. To shorten it:

• Set a timer for 15 minutes. When it rings, count pieces.
• Raise the ante to 2 pieces after the first 10 minutes.
• Start with 8 pieces each on school nights.

Gelt is the Yiddish word for money, and giving children small sums at Hanukkah is an older European custom (My Jewish Learning); the chocolate coins sold as gelt today take their name from it. If you play with chocolate, give each player a cup for their pile and one rule: nobody eats their stake until the game is over. Raisins and pennies avoid the problem entirely.

Dreidel variants worth knowing

• Longest spin. Everyone spins at the same moment, or one at a time against a stopwatch. Last dreidel standing wins. For a harder round, try spinning it upside down on its stem.
• Tzedakah dreidel. Play with pennies or dimes, and the winner chooses where the whole pile goes as a donation. Tzedakah is the Hebrew word for charitable giving.
• Dreidel tournament. Tables of four play for 15 minutes on a timer, the two players with the most pieces at each table move on, and a final spin-off decides the title. Good at a party with 12 or more guests.

If you’re short on dreidels, paper ones work if you print them on card stock and push a short pencil through the top as a spindle. The template above, with a classic and an Israeli version, comes from our Hanukkah Games Bundle, which also includes a dreidel score sheet and 40 printable gelt tokens for families who would rather not play with chocolate.

What the eight nights of Hanukkah 2026 could look like

This plan follows the 2026 calendar. Each night assumes 20 to 40 minutes of play after the candles, not a full evening. Swap nights freely; the only fixed points are the two Fridays.

Night 1, Friday, December 4

In 2026 the first night is also the start of Shabbat. Lighting a fire is forbidden on Shabbat, so the hanukkiah is lit first, before the Shabbat candles, while it is still light out and before your local Shabbat candle-lighting time, which Hebcal lists by city (My Jewish Learning). Use longer candles or more oil than usual, since they need to keep burning for half an hour after nightfall (Chabad-Lubavitch).

Observant households avoid activities like writing and drawing on Shabbat (My Jewish Learning), and many also keep phones and money off the table. So pick spoken games: would you rather, a trivia round read from a list you printed earlier, or telling the Hanukkah story together, one person per part. Save the gelt and the dreidel for tomorrow.

Night 2, Saturday, December 5

Candles are lit after Shabbat ends; customs differ on whether the hanukkiah comes before or after havdalah. Then it’s dreidel night, and the natural moment for the tournament, since nobody has school in the morning.

Night 3, Sunday, December 6

The best night in 2026 for a Hanukkah party with friends: latke tasting, picture bingo for the kids, trivia teams for the adults.

Nights 4 to 7, Monday to Thursday, December 7 to 10

School nights, so keep each one to a single game. Monday: ten minutes of would you rather at dinner, then a longest-spin contest. Tuesday: tzedakah dreidel, with the cause agreed before you start so the winner picks from a short list. Wednesday: picture bingo, eight rounds with eight different winning patterns (a row, four corners, a big X, the full card). Thursday: craft night, making the fold-up dreidels and testing them in a spin-off. Also on Thursday, print anything you want for Friday night.

Night 8, Friday, December 11

All eight candles plus the shamash, lit again before the Shabbat candles and again with longer candles. Keep it to conversation: each person names a favorite moment from the week. Hanukkah ends at nightfall on Saturday, December 12.

If you’d rather not plan the week yourself, the bundle has eight activity cards, one per night, and the cards for Nights 1 and 8 are written to be Shabbat-friendly.

Hanukkah trivia questions (with answers)

These eight were written for this article, and each answer is checked against the linked source. Read the question, give teams 30 seconds, then reveal. Questions 1 to 4 suit ages 9 and up; 5 to 8 are harder.

1. In what year will Hanukkah begin on December 24, Christmas Eve? Answer: 2027 (Hebcal).
2. What does the Yiddish word halb, behind the letter hei, mean? Answer: half.
3. The Hebrew word shamash is spelled the same as another word. Which one? Answer: shemesh, meaning sun (My Jewish Learning).
4. How many blessings are said before lighting on the first night, and how many on the other nights? Answer: three on the first night, two after that (My Jewish Learning).
5. Which Seleucid king did the Jews of Judea revolt against, beginning in 167 BCE? Answer: Antiochus IV Epiphanes (My Jewish Learning).
6. The first eight-day rededication celebration was patterned on which other festival? Answer: Sukkot (My Jewish Learning).
7. In Sephardi custom, which light on the hanukkiah is lit last? Answer: the shamash; a separate flame lights the night candles first (My Jewish Learning).
8. The dreidel is a Jewish version of which older spinning top? Answer: the teetotum (Wikipedia: Dreidel).

For a full trivia night you’ll want about 40 questions in rounds of ten. The bundle’s set has 40, grouped by topic from history to food and gelt, with an answer key and short fun facts to read between rounds. Two of them, to give you the flavor: “What does the Hebrew word Hanukkah mean?” and “Where is the hanukkiah traditionally placed?”

Hanukkah games for preschoolers

Three- to five-year-olds can’t follow a full dreidel economy, and they shouldn’t have to. Three games that suit them:

• Simple dreidel. Spin, name the letter together, and everyone gets one raisin no matter what. The point is learning the four shapes. Switch to the real rules around age five.
• Picture bingo. Pictures instead of words (a latke, a dreidel, a candle) let pre-readers play without help. Use gelt or raisins as markers and stop at the first full line.
• Candle count. Tape a paper hanukkiah outline on the wall, eight branches plus a raised spot for the shamash, and each evening let the child put up the shamash flame plus one more flame for the new night. By the last night they’ll know the count better than you do.

Keep coins, raisins and wrapped gelt at the table under an adult’s eye; small round pieces are a choking risk for toddlers.

Games for ages 6 to 12

This is the dreidel age. Use the full rules, add the tournament, and let the winner keep the “champion” dreidel until the next night. Kids this age also like:

• Latke relay. Two teams, a spatula each, a felt or cardboard latke to carry across the room and flip onto a plate. Drop it and you go back to the start.
• Gelt toss. Tape eight squares in a row on the floor plus one square set a little above the row for the shamash, like a hanukkiah. Toss gelt from three steps back; landing in the shamash square scores double.
• Trivia in mixed teams. Pair each kid with an adult, which takes care of the one child who knows every answer.

Teens and adults

Teenagers will play dreidel if something real is at stake, like choosing tomorrow’s dessert or skipping dish duty. For adults, the latke tasting does the work: three batches (classic potato, sweet potato, one experiment), applesauce and sour cream on the side, and blind score cards rating crunch, color and flavor. Latkes and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) are fried in oil in memory of the oil of the Temple (My Jewish Learning), so the tasting belongs to the holiday as much as the dreidel does.

Add the harder trivia questions above and a would-you-rather round between plates, and you have 40 minutes covered.

Running a Hanukkah party with a mixed group

When guests range from toddlers to grandparents, and from lifelong dreidel players to a friend at their first Hanukkah, stations work better than one big game.

1. Before guests arrive, set up a dreidel table (two or three dreidels, cups of pieces, a printed rules card), a bingo corner with cards and markers, and a tasting plate with score cards.
2. After candle lighting, start everyone on dreidel for 15 minutes, with one experienced player per table to explain the letters to newcomers.
3. While the food comes out, run bingo for the kids and trivia teams for the adults.
4. In the last 20 minutes, announce the latke winner and the dreidel champion.

For 20 guests, print about 12 bingo cards (younger kids share with a parent), one rules card per dreidel table and score cards for every adult. At 12 pieces per dreidel player, 100 pieces of gelt covers eight players.

If your family also celebrates Christmas, the two holidays don’t touch in 2026: Hanukkah ends on December 12, nearly two weeks before Christmas Eve. For a separate Christmas evening later in the month, our Christmas game night ideas are sorted by group the same way.

What to print this week

If you’re planning ahead, the short list is: the dreidel rules box above (one per table), the eight trivia questions for Night 1, and a bingo set if you have kids under eight. A hanukkiah needs 44 candles for the eight nights, shamash included (My Jewish Learning); for the Fridays, set aside longer candles, 2 for Night 1 and 9 for Night 8. Add a bag of gelt for Night 2. If you’d rather print everything in one go, the Hanukkah Games Bundle has the rules, the paper dreidels, the trivia, the bingo and the eight-night cards in US Letter and A4.