Seder night is one of the most exciting events in the Jewish calendar – especially if you’re still in school! Kids love Seder: when else do you get to stay up that late for dinner with Mom and Dad, eat Grandma’s famous matzah balls, bring your pillow to the table and bribe your parents over a cracker?!
As parents, we want our children to grow up with a sense of pride in our national identity. Passover marks the time in our history when Jacob’s Egypt-dwelling descendents became a unified nation – so what better time to invest a little time and effort in our kids’ education?
One of the key ideas at Passover is teaching the story of our ancestors’ exodus to our kids. Many of the Seder’s rituals and practices have evolved to inspire curiosity: we want our children to think, question and engage with everything happening around them. On a night that’s already enshrined in the unfamiliar and mysterious, it’s so easy to captivate the little minds sitting around our tables.
Everyone knows the age-old traditions surrounding the afikoman: it is ‘stolen’ during the evening and ransomed back in exchange for gifts. If you think a little bit outside the box, you’ll come up with some fantastic ways to engage your kids like this all night! Check out our favorite ways to engage your little ones on Seder night:
Interactive 10 Plagues
If you hadn’t noticed, kids love pretty much anything gory and gruesome. Passover comes with its very own Frankenstein’s monster: the ten plagues feature blood, wild animals, bugs and pustulating sickness – a veritable treasure trove of terror to delight and disgust your children!
• Blood. Try pouring red kosher-for-Passover jello powder or food coloring into a glass jug; pour clear water from a second glass container into it and watch it turn red. The Midrsah says the Jews could drink the blood as if it were water: take a swig and watch your kids turn green!
• Frogs, Lice, Locusts. You can find all manner of realistic plastic animals in toy stores which can be introduced to the table. Similarly, look for ping pong balls to toss around to replicate the hail that destroyed Egypt’s crops.
• Wild animals. Like it or not, we live in the age of the onesie. Look for full-body animal suits the ‘adults’ at the table can change into – it should be pretty easy to find gorillas, lions, tigers and penguins. Your animal antics will delight your children!
• Boils and blindness. Costume stores will have stick-on wounds and sores you can use to imitate the plague of boils and gross out your guests! Some will also have ‘blind masks’ you can wear as glasses. Alternatively, go for the all-out experiential and set up an obstacle course for your blindfolded kids to navigate.
Reenact the best bits
If your kid is captivated by the Passover story, make it come to life!
• Slavery. Bring piles of blocks or marshmallows and cocktail sticks to the table and appoint a taskmaster to oversee your little slaves building pyramids! Make sure to have a prize ready for the winner.
• Leaving Egypt. Have everyone bundle up their favorite possessions to drag around the house as you act out how quickly the Jews had to leave.
• Splitting of the sea. Use yards of blue material to recreate the sea splitting and – if you’re incredibly brave and have an uncarpeted floor – a ‘pathway’ through the sea made of wet sand, decorated with ‘sea foam’ (bubbles!) will amaze your children!
Songs, stories and games
These are a few ideas for games to keep your kids occupied:
• Guess Who? Write up the names of players or items in the Passover story on index cards (eg Pharaoh, Moses, Red Sea, matzah). Tie a headband or bandana round everyone’s heads and randomly stick a card into the band – everyone else will know who’s who, but you won’t know your own character. Everyone has to ask questions to figure it out.
• Song game. Pre-write a list of words linked to Passover and the Seder. Split your guests into two or three teams. Announce the theme: each team has to sing a song including it. Whoever has the most songs wins the round! Or use the same list to play charades.
• Do your homework. If your kids have been learning Passover songs, make sure you know them well enough to incorporate into your Seder. Also make sure you know who knows which parts of the story or song well enough to lead that section of the Seder.
Got other ideas? Share them in the comments section below!
