Seder Questions- Tally with Clothespins

The kids are still talking about this one from last year....

We wanted to encourage all the children at our seder to ask questions throughout the seder this year. We tossed mutli colored clothes pins around our table. We hung a large clothes line rope along our doorway. We began the seder by introducing the idea that we would tally up all our seder questions using clothes pins. Next, everyone took a guess of how many questions would be asked. As the seder went along, the kids (and adults) hung clothespins along the rope. The highest guess was 27. We had 36 questions in by the end of the seder.A possible twist...you could have each child or family have their own color of clothespins. We wanted to stay away from our seder feeling competitive. But, it may work as an alternative to motivate each child to participate.

Use Hieroglyphs As Seating Cards

As your guests arrive at the table, hand them a hieroglyph alphabet. They can use it to search for their name on the seating cards.

Hieroglyphs from A to Z by Peter Der Manuelian has clear illustrations and a great alphabet code in the back.

Have fun!

Seder Table Toys

We loved these for our kids when they needed to stay at the table. We had them build all kinds of pyramids using Wedgits.

Look around your house. You would be amazed how many things you have that you can connect to the Passover experience. Don't forget the FROGS!

Seder Shoe Boxes for Maggid

I am re-posting this one from last year....

Here's a fun way we plan to re-tell the Passover story this year at our Seder table. We packed up several shoe boxes with props. We will hand them out and ask our seder guests to share a section of Maggid (the Passover story) using the props inside the shoe box. Here's what we packed up:

Box # 1 A baby doll, a blue roll for clear gift wrap, a basket, a princess doll and a groovy girl doll. (Yes, our hope is that they will share Baby Moses in the Nile River)

Box # 2 A sheep, a stick, a middle aged Moses puppet (http://www.chaikids.com/) , a small tree (purchased in the dollar bin this week at Target) and some orange streamers. (Yes, our hope is that they will share the burning bush story)

Box # 3 A bag of ten plauges props and our small Pharoah and Moses plastic figures (purchased from http://www.chaikids.com/) (We can't wait to hear "Let My People Go!")

Box # 4 A big blue sheet and lots of small "people" from assorted sets and games the kids have in the house(We can't wait to see all our old toys cross the Red Sea)We are excited to see how our guests bring their shoe boxes to life! The dolls can easily be substituted with magazine or internet cut outs glued onto popsicle sticks!

Bingo Boards with Pictures

A wonderful organization named Matan published bingo boards with pictures for children to follow along during the seder.

Check out the matankids.org blog to find it. They have other wonderful resources as well. Support this amazing organization when you visit their site. They make Jewish education a reality for all children!

http://blog.matankids.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Passover-Seder-Bingo.pdf

We can't wait to use them!

The Steps of the Seder Buzzer!

Each year we post the steps of the seder along the mirror in our dining room. We kick off our seder singing all the steps. As we go along throughout the seder, we each get a turn to come up and use the pointer. We sing along and freeze at the step we are about to begin. If you go too far, you get buzzed by the group! We practice with the kids ahead of time to avoid sad faces. The adults usually go too far on purpose to keep it fun!

A individual version can be used using velcro to help guests follow along (and know how many more steps until dinner!)

The Pharoah Phone

We created a Pharoah Phone using an old toy phone and clip art on the computer.

We plan to have Pharoah call from time to time throughout the seder to send our little "slaves" out for tasks to keep them busy.

Here are some of our ideas:

-send them to the kitchen to serve a special palace guest

-entertain the guests with a Passover inspired song

-use legos or marshmellows to build something in Egypt

-carry something heavy around the table

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Seder Bingo Boards

We found some great Seder Bingo boards. These are text only.


http://babaganewz.com/sites/default/files/posts/downloads/sederbingoboards.pdf


They include doing seder steps, making funny noises and even helping out the hosts!

We can't wait to try them out this year.

Modern Day Plagues for Our Seder Table

What are boils? What are vermin? Is lice what some kids get in school? We hear these questions every April at our seder table.

We are going to try something new this year.

After reading the traditional 10 plagues at the seder, we are going to have everyone complete this sentence below.


If you want to get rid of me, just........

Maybe now we can relate to the story. What will push us to our breaking point just like Pharoah?