A dreidel is a four-sided spinning top used during a traditional Hanukkah game played in Jewish homes around the world. Each side of the dreidel features a letter of the Hebrew alphabet (Nun, Gimel, Hey, and Shin), each with a different meaning. Every year, friends and family gather around to spin the dreidel, collect chocolate coins, sing songs, and celebrate a variety of Hanukkah traditions. We invite you to create your own four-sided decorative paper dreidel to honor the holiday traditions and memories you hold dear. Remember, each side can represent a different cherished memory!
Materials
- Assorted paper (four pieces)
- Yarn or any type of string
- Scissors
- Glue
- Pen
- Ruler
- Buttons, beads, or other embellishments
Steps
- Explore your home for four unique pieces of paper to use. These could be options like old holiday cards, wrapping paper, magazine pages, or printed family photos.
- Use a pen and ruler to carefully draw the outline of a dreidel onto one of the pieces of paper. Make sure the top of the dreidel is at least an inch wide.
- Pile all four sheets of paper. Place the one with the dreidel outline on top.
- Carefully cut along the dreidel outline, cutting through all four sheets at once.
- Separate the dreidel cutouts and fold each in half longways.
- Grab your string and beads and/or buttons. Tie a knot at the end of the string and begin to thread your embellishments making sure to tie knots between each to create space. Leave a tail of string without embellishments or knots at the bottom that is about the length of your dreidel drawing.
- Lay the tail of string along the center of one of the dreidel cutouts and glue it down.
- Take another dreidel cut out and glue its right half to the right side of the first cutout. Make sure the center of each dreidel is touching and glued together.
- Do this action two more times. Make sure each added dreidel’s sides are glued to the neighboring dreidels’ sides.
- Cut off the remaining string from the bottom of the four-sided dreidel and trim any pieces of each cutout that don’t line up.
- Tie a loop at the top of the embellished string and hang your four-sided decorative paper dreidel somewhere in your home.
Share your Decorative Paper Dreidel with us! Use the hashtag #Skirball to show us how yours came out!