The blog at Pediastaff was looking for some therapy games that have a connection to Hanukkah, and I have been making a bunch of games lately. My son was thrilled to help me create a board game using a dreidel to determine the spaces you move.

I made a game board that would fit with my clothespin game board, but it can be played with any small manipulatives used as the game pieces. You could use pom poms or little toys to move around the board.

You spin the dreidel and move the number of spaces indicated by the symbol that lands face up. My son determined how many spaces each symbol stands for, and they are in the picture below.

When you land on a space, you have to do the activity stated on the space. My son made the game, and he was trying to make it a little tricky. Some of the activities on the spaces are:

Jump on one foot

Draw the symbol just spun

Write the names of 5 animals

Do 5 jumping jacks

Roll again

Skip a turn

Write 5 things that make you happy.

Here is a pdf link to the game board. I also have made it so that the board can be made full size, which is 12 inches by 12 inches. Here is the link to the 4 pages of regular size paper that need to be taped together in order to make it 12×12 size.

I also used the dreidels to play a writing game.

When I bought the dreidels, they came in a multi-pack, and so I used the other ones for a different game. I taped a letter on each side of the 6 dreidels, and had the kids pick a random dreidel. They then had to spin the dreidel, and write a word with the letter that the dreidel landed on. I challenged the kids to write their best, and then we went around the group of 3 kids, and had each child pick one thing about the way a word was written that the writer could fix. Then everyone would fix their writing. It was very motivating for them to write neatly when they knew that their peers would be picking out something that needed to be fixed.

Materials:

Dreidel (s)

game board

pencil and paper

Skills: