Get Crafty and Create New Passover Traditions With Your Kids

The Passover story comes alive as kids learn the Passover tradition through modern crafts that emphasize family togetherness and learning about Jewish tradition by doing. Revitalize your Pesach family traditions with crafts, activities, and contests that will have your children leading the Seder instead of snoozing after they've imbibed their required four cups of grape juice.

The Thirty Second Passover

Seder, the traditional Passover meal, is the foundation of the holiday celebration. In Hebrew, the word Seder means “order.” Accordingly participants in the dinner follow a prescribed set of prayers, eating special symbolic foods as they commemorate the liberation of the Jewish people from bondage in Egypt and tell the story of Exodus.

How Can the Pesach Story Come Alive to Preschoolers?

For tots, Pesach is best understood through following Passover rituals themselves like dipping bitter herbs in salt water to symbolize the tears of the slaves in Egypy, all a part of elegant adult meal. However, for some preschoolers reciting the story of the ten plagues and dripping the drops of wine as tradition requires is a bit too symbolic. Personify those plagues a bit more by turning them into concrete finger puppets. As kiddoes transform ordinary mittens into learning tools, your little one will discover how to represent locust, darkness, plague and boils with their craft supplies.

Your family will have an opportunity to discuss the meaning of the Passover story in depth. Don’t worry, even the wise son, was a finger puppets before he was grown up. If your kids love the puppets, go crazy and use them for the Four Questions too! You might have the first child smart enough to get bar mitvahed at the age of four. When Aunt Sadie, insists that it is beshert her genius nephew will be a rabbi, just nod and smile that she isn’t complaining that your charoset is not as good as her mother’s recipe.

Learning Through Action

Though the puppets are best enjoyed by the under-five set, many crafts are perfect for engaging the entire family. Decorate a version of Elijah's Goblet with tissue paper, ribbon, and spring motifs. Got a budding artist? Ask him to embellish the Afekomen cover with puff paints and glitter. Let children of all ages hand paint their own Seder plates or create tee-shirt stuffed pillows for guests to recline on during the holiday dinner meal. Your elementary schoolers and even pre-teens will feel great pride as their artistic creations are showcased for grandparents and special guests at the Pesach meal. The art and crafts materials can be as sophisticated or as basic as your children's skills and abilities. Have a young Chagal, use acrylics, pastels, or faux-stain glass on your Seder plate if it is decorative! Just make sure that the materials are non-toxic if the plate will be used for actual display. After all these activities, your kids will surely have all the answers to "the four questions" without the usual belabored rehearsal.