Remember that the point of the Seder is to tell the story of Passover to your children. We are instructed to pass along the lessons that our people learned when they were slaves in Egypt to the next generation. So do what ever it takes to present the story in a way that is meaningful and appropriate to the ages of your children.
1. Have a picnic Seder on the floor!
2. Hold your child-friendly Seder in the late afternoon.
3. Involve children in all the preparations (cleaning out, table setting, marketing, making place cards, cutting flowers, serving food, food preparation)
4. Together with your child you can make a variety of different kinds of charoset. Most Ashkenazy Jews in America think that traditional charoset is the apples, nuts and cinnamon variety. Jews throughout the world have other traditions. You could make 3-4 different types of charoset and have your children explain the different ingredients to the whole Seder.
5. Use things made by children at school for the actual Seder - like a Seder plate or matzah cover
6. Provide munchies during the Seder such as carrots, celery, apples or matzah crackers.
7. Provide activities like crayons and playdough.
8. Make sure you have lots of children's books with you that tell the story of Passover. Amazon.com has a whole Passover section as does Children's Book World on Pico.
9. Prepare a Seder “goody-bag” for the children. Collect stickers: scratch and sniff with appropriate smells such as grape for the wine, apple for the charoset, frog stickers and stickers showing all sorts of different building tools.
10. Create a bag holding symbols of the plagues (plastic frogs, grasshoppers, sunglasses for darkness, ping-pong balls for hail, a bottle of red water, a variety of insects, etc.). Check out: http://www.plaguesbag.com/
11. Have a discussion about 10 modern day plagues.
12. Have a frog croaking contest! Or a frog jumping contest!
13. If you really want to get silly, you can have people eat matzah and then try to whistle - the results are hysterical and quite messy!!
These tips came from Carol Bovill, Fredda Loewenstein, Leslie Cerruti, Beth Weisman at our Early Childhood Centers.
