Hanukkah coloring pages and activities for young kids

Hanukkah 2026 begins at sundown on Friday, December 4 and ends at nightfall on Saturday, December 12, according to Hebcal's Chanukah 2026 calendar. The best coloring pages for it show what families actually do over the eight nights: a menorah with the right number of candles, a dreidel, a plate of latkes or jelly doughnuts, chocolate gelt, and a family gathered by the window. Below are page ideas you can draw yourself, the details worth getting right, simple activities for toddlers and preschoolers, and picture books to read alongside.

A short note on approach: every tradition described here is linked to a Jewish organisation that explains it. Families observe in different ways, and the best guide to any one family's Hanukkah is that family.

What Hanukkah is, in a sentence or two for kids

My Jewish Learning explains that Hanukkah is Hebrew for "dedication" and that the Festival of Lights remembers the Maccabees and the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and its menorah. ReformJudaism.org describes it as an eight-day festival celebrated with candles, food, family and friends, with one more candle added each night.

For a three- or four-year-old, something like this is enough: "A long time ago, people cleaned their special Temple and lit its lamp again. Now every night for eight nights we light one more candle, so it gets brighter and brighter." PJ Library, the Jewish children's book program, publishes separate versions of the Hanukkah story for kids under 5 and for ages 6 and up, which is a good way to pick the right level for your child.

Getting the menorah and dreidel right

Most errors on free Hanukkah printables are in two places, so it is worth a minute before you draw.

Nine candles, not seven. The Hanukkah menorah, also called a hanukkiyah, has eight branches for the eight nights plus another for the shamash, the helper candle used to light the others, which ReformJudaism.org says is often taller, central or more prominently displayed. My Jewish Learning adds that the ninth spot should sit at a different elevation from the other eight. A seven-branched lamp is the ancient Temple menorah, so save that shape for a "long ago" page.

Candles go in from right to left. On a page that shows a particular night, put the candles on the right. My Jewish Learning explains that the candles are placed in the menorah from right to left, just as Hebrew is written, but lit from left to right. The same page says the whole set for all eight nights takes 44 candles, which makes a nice counting fact for older kids.

Dreidel letters. ReformJudaism.org's dreidel explainer lists the four letters as nun, gimel, hei and shin, standing for "a great miracle happened there," and notes that in Israel the shin is replaced with a pei, "a great miracle happened here." If you cannot write Hebrew letters confidently, leave the four sides blank and let kids decorate them with stripes or stars. A blank dreidel is far better than a backwards letter.

Coloring page ideas you can draw in five minutes

Page	How to draw it	Good for
One big menorah	Eight candles in a row, the shamash higher in the middle, a wide base	Toddlers: big shapes, easy to fill
Night-by-night menorah	The same menorah eight times, with one more flame each time	Counting from 1 to 8
Dreidel	A box with a pointed bottom and a short stem on top, sides left blank	Preschoolers who like to add patterns
Latkes and doughnuts	A plate of round pancakes with a bowl of applesauce, or jelly doughnuts with sugar dots	Talking about food fried in oil
Gelt	A pile of round coins, each with a simple design	Very young kids: circles are easy
Our family at the window	Your family next to a lit menorah in a window	The page they keep

The foods come straight from the sources: My Jewish Learning says many Hanukkah foods are fried in oil to recall the oil of the Temple menorah, including latkes and jelly doughnuts, the Sephardic bimuelos, and chocolate gelt, named from the Yiddish word for money. ReformJudaism.org adds sufganiyot, the jelly doughnuts traditionally eaten in Israel, and keftes de prasas, leek patties. If your family is Sephardi or Mizrahi, draw your own foods, not just latkes.

The window page has a reason behind it. My Jewish Learning explains that many families place the menorah in a window facing the street to publicize the miracle of Hanukkah.

When you finish a drawing, trace over it in black marker, then photocopy or scan it so you can hand out a fresh copy each night. Our guide to how to print coloring pages covers getting dark lines from a phone photo.

Hanukkah activities for toddlers and preschoolers

• A paper menorah that grows. Color one big menorah page and tape it to the fridge. Each night, your child glues on one more yellow paper flame. Toddlers get the candle ritual without a real flame anywhere near them.
• Spin a dreidel without keeping score. The Reform explainer gives the rules: nun take nothing, gimel take everything, hei take half, shin put one in. For a three-year-old, just spinning and naming the letter is the game.
• Help with the latkes. Washing potatoes and setting out applesauce are good jobs for small hands. The grown-up does the grating and frying.
• Real candles stay a grown-up job. Let your child watch, point to tonight's new candle, and help count. A paper menorah is the one they get to "light."

Hanukkah picture books to read before you color

All four are listed and reviewed by the Jewish Book Council:

Book	Author	What it is about
Latkes and Applesauce: A Hanukkah Story	Fran Manushkin, illustrated by Kris Easler	A Hanukkah classic reissued with new art, back matter with the Hanukkah story, and a recommended age of 3 to 7.
Hanukkah Bear	Eric A. Kimmel, illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka	Bubba Brayna mistakes a sleepy bear for the rabbi, and they light the menorah, eat latkes and play dreidel.
The Ninth Night of Hanukkah	Erica S. Perl, illustrated by Shahar Kober	A family in a new apartment cannot find their Hanukkah things, and the holiday becomes a way to include their neighbors.
Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins	Eric Kimmel, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman	Hershel of Ostropol outwits the goblins who have snuffed out Hanukkah in a village synagogue. Spookier than the others, so read it yourself first.

Read one, then hand over a page of a scene from it: a bear at the door, a plate of latkes, a menorah in a new window.

A page with your own family in it

The page that holds a small child longest is the one about them. Draw your family lighting candles together, a grandparent frying latkes, or the kids spinning a dreidel on the floor. Stick figures are fine. If drawing is not your thing, our guide to turning a photo into a coloring page for free shows how to trace a family photo into line art at home.

We are also making a Hanukkah coloring storybook of our own, researched against Jewish sources and reviewed before any art is drawn. It is not on sale yet. Colorkin can already make a page of your family from a photo, drafted with AI illustration tools and checked and finished by a person, and the free sample is an easy way to see whether your kids take to it.

For other holidays, including Lunar New Year coloring pages and Diwali coloring pages, see our family and heritage guides.

Questions parents ask