A giveaway. I don’t usually do giveaways because they they give me shpilkes, but last year I did two: my DIY LEGO dreidel kits, and the best Afikoman present ever: ChaiKids.com’s Moses and Pharaoh Action Figure Set.
I have a soft spot for ChaiKids.com because they were the first good, kid-centered Jewish catalog way back when I was new at all this. They are still going strong, as their carefully curated offerings reflect. Here’s the mission statement:
Chai Kids looks for, and sometimes creates ourselves, the very best products available so children can experience the joy of the holidays and everyday Jewish life. We specialize in dramatic and creative play.
And, they tuck a thank-you note into each package so that the kid who gets the goodies can send polite acknowledgement to the giver. Such good manners.
Today, ChaiKids is offering a neat Passover game to a lucky reader at BibleBeltBalabusta: the Passover Seder Matching Game.
It’s by Pigment & Hue, the folks who publish Why We Celebrate Passover, the picture book I use most often in classroom Show and Tells and with younger students. I reviewed it last year, here.
The game consists of 48 thick cards, matzah on one side and matching illustrations on the other (24 images from the book).
When viewed in order, as on the back of the game box, the images present the whole story of Passover, from Joseph (why the Hebrews were in Egypt in the first place) to our modern-day seders.
All cards pictured on the back of the box
THE GAME: The Passover Seder Matching Game is a variation on the good ol’ Memory or Concentration idea: pairs of cards mixed up, face-down on a table get flipped over in turn, and players try to remember where a particular card was seen last. My Kindergartener beats the heck out of me at memory games, so bad that I wonder if I need Ginko supplements. (If you are totally new at this, I’ve typed the game rules below.)
THE GAME AT THE SEDER: I predict my family will use the game during the loooong, 8 day Passover week, to stave off holiday ennui and intrusive thoughts of kitniyot, but it’s designed as a seder enrichment tool.
Here are some ideas:
- Game on the table (kids): Kids can play the Matching Game on the table or floor while the grownups keep going back for more food.
- Big Seder IceBreaker (all ages): each guest gets a card and has to find their match.
- Storytelling (all ages): Give each guest a card have everyone “tell” their bit of the story.
VOCAB: Teachers like Memory games because vocabulary gets a workout if players holler out the name of whatever is pictured. For example, saying Maror every time you see the card is an easy way to say Maror over and over. The more you play, the more you say, the more you might actually remember. And boy, are we supposed to remember the story of the Exodus.
A SEQUENCING HACK: Vocab is cool, but where I really see this game shining is as a Sequencing Activity. As I said, the game cards are the story of Passover and why/how we celebrate it. Kids can put all 24 cards in order. (More than one right order is possible, since the seder section recaps elements of the Passover story, but you’ll see what I mean in the photo above.) For younger kids, I might remove a few cards.
And, apologies to the publisher, but I’m going to hot-glue a magnet to the back of each card, so kids can manipulate them on a giant white board. Can you tell I’m a Sunday School teacher? The modified cards on a mobile white board could be a station at a Passover fair / workshop / family program / synagogue seder.
to show size (relative to my thumb…)
GIVEAWAY RULES: Want to win the game? Enter by leaving a friendly comment below or on the relevant Facebook post.
As last year, it would be groovy if your comment included a Passover idea / book / activity to engage kids at a seder. Then, we can all learn from each other.
Help me show Chai Kids this is worth their time and toys by spreading the word, please. Share this post via Facebook or Twitter, retweet the Twitter announcement (@BBBalabusta), or comment here.
Alas, we must limit entries to addresses within the 48 contiguous U.S. states.
I’ll select one winner at random, and then Chai Kids will ship the Passover Seder Matching Game well in time for the first seder.
The winner will be selected Monday, March 18th.
If you win, your address will remain confidential, I promise.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Good luck!
Each ChaiKids order comes with a thank-you card to mail to the giver.
How To Play (says the box): Place the cards face down on a flat surface. Each player turns over two cards to try to find a match. If the cards match, the player takes another turn and continues until the cards don’t match. Then the next player takes a turn. When all the pairs have been found, the player with the most pairs win.
Links to a few of the Passover goodies at ChaiKids.com:
Moses and Pharaoh action figure set (one set)
Moses and Pharaoh action figure set (sale on 6 sets)
Kid’s Egyptian headgear for seder and dramatic play (scroll down)
Toy frogs, plagues toys, seder Bingo, puppets, etc.
The book: Why We Celebrate Passover
Two sets of Moses and Pharoah Action Figures ready to ship….frogs included. Photo from ChaiKids.com.
Bible Belt Balabusta 
We are just introducing matching games with my toddler and she loves Jewish content games, this looks awesome!
I would love to win this game for my kids.
Thank you so much for the giveaway and even bigger THANK YOU for your blog. I just found it during Purim preparation and I LOVE IT!!!
(You really hooked me on Playmobil conversion, and I spent way too much time and money on ebay these past two weeks. :)) My son, who is 14, has a great Playmobil collection and now I need to build one for my daughter. A few years ago while getting ready for his Bar Mitzva he converted one of his Playmobil man into a rabbi reading from the Torah (we printed a tiny script for him.) So your ideas really were a great reminder for me that got my creative juices flowing, since we are on a tight budget right now and I have to be really creative. Thank you again for sharing your great ideas!)
For Passover last year my then 3-year-old daughter had to look through her play food to find all the symbolic food that belongs on the Seder plate. Surprisingly, we found everything (an apple for Charoset, wooden egg, plastic potato, chicken leg, and onion, and felt lettuce and an empty salt shaker for salt water = tears.) She arranged them all on a Dollar Tree’s divided plate that has exactly six slots, and a round “bowl” in the middle for salt water. And then she had endless Seder celebration with all of her dolls and stuffed animals.
This year I’m planning to introducing her to plagues. She seems ready. 🙂
It’s funny how 4-year-old’s memory works. And how she processes information. When I was telling her this year the Purim story and mentioned Aman, she right away said: “Oh, so he was just like Hitler and Pharaoh!” Yes, exactly, kiddo! And we win again!!!
(Sorry for a long post)
Tanya
Thanks, Tanya. You are right, your creative juices are totally flowing. Sounds like everybody’s having fun at your house.
And, now I want to run out to Dollar Tree and see if they have any of those dishes left….might be neat for my classes to decorate.
Oh, and I can commiserate with the unplanned eBay Playmobil jags. In my experience, the madness doesn’t last long, and then you’ve got a core collection that can adapt to any holiday. Hope you got a pic of your son’s modified Rabbi and Torah!
Thank you, Joanna.
This is not a dish per se ;), it’s more like a plastic sorting tray or like a chips and dip tray only with 6 slots and like a round bowl for dip in the middle. But it certainly works for other things (we also use it in our math activities). Hope you can find one.
Of course we have a pic of our Rabbi reading Torah! 🙂 Actually we still have it, he never disassembled it.
I like Chai kids. I’ve ordered from them in the past. I have 10 – yes, count them – 10 grandkids. So, on seder night we need lots of fun stuff to keep everyone interested. We have had a living seder with everyone – adults and kids – fully dressed in Biblical era clothing acting out the story. One of the kids favorite parts is taking the booty out of Egypt. I spent two years scouring thrift shops for lots of golden and silver colored dishes, platters, goblets, etc. and lots and lots of sparkly golden jewelry. I have two huge boxes of the stuff. I set it all out on elegant tables and the kids get to grab stuff, put it in their paks just before we exit Egypt and go through the split open sea (two blue tarps hung on either side of the back door on the patio.) We then parade down the sidewalk with our maps and walking sticks and tamborines, singing, dancing, and laughing. While some of us are marching with the kids the other adults make a change of scenery and set up a huge tent. Outside the tent is a water fountain that serves as Miriams well. Another part of our drama that is somewhat different than anything else I’ve seen is the 10th plague – death of the first born. One year I had the idea while at the Dollar Tree during haloween season to buy skulls, skeletons, and some of those styrofoam RIP grave site markers. All very creepy. But I had never been able to find anything that showed ‘death”very clearly. So, the first time I got all those death things out and tossed them around the floor the kids kinda freaked out at first. But now it’s just part of our normal drama and the kids like it as much as the frogs and boil stickers. I’m looking forward to this year and will be using something new this year that I read on Bible Belt Balabusta’s page. She mentioned some frog headbands at Target and I was able to snag some for this year.
Devora, your 10 grandkids are incredibly lucky! The glittery Passover booty props sound fabulous, and I love that you actually “leave Egypt” and go out on the sidewalk. Do all your neighbors want to join in?
Thanks so much for your descriptions.
So glad you snagged some frog headbands due to my fb page pic. That was thanks to a reader’s tip (so I’m glad I snagged some, too).
Have a happy Passover, as I’m sure you will.
Two resources to share:
1) Joyous Hagaddah – somewhat irreverent, but the illustrations really draw in our kids: http://www.joyoushaggadah.com/
2) Celebrating Passover with food allergies – lots of ideas for non-food celebrations and some allergy-friendly recipes: http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/resourcespre.php?id=109&title=celebrating_passover_with_food_allergies
Thank you for those resources, Lynn. I like the cartoony artwork in the Joyous Haggadah and would like to take a closer look (the slideshow doesn’t work on my computer). Thanks for entering the giveaway!
I’m loving reading everyone’s great ideas!
I am a preschool teacher at a Jewish preschool/day school and I would love this game for my class. I have ordered materials from Chai kids before and I know they have great products. I have a great idea to teach the children about the plague of blood. You have a table set up with cups to drink. In half of the cups you fill with red Kool aid for the blood the Egyptians had to drink and the other half of the cups plain water which shows the children that the water the Jews drank did not turn to blood, how the plague only affected the Egyptians.
Laurie, do you mean that half the cups have red Koolaid powder, and half don’t, but that you fill all the cups with water from the same water pitcher? So that only the Ancient Egyptian cups turn red, right?
Yes, exactly!!! The children will think it is so cool while they are learning an important part about the story, how the Israelites did not receive the plagues even though they lived among the Egyptians.
I just wanted to clarify in case we have readers who aren’t familiar with the nifty trick. Thanks!
Would love to win this for my kids! Thank you!
First I need to tell you how much I appreciate your website. I am a New Yorker now living in the South and sometimes I really do feel like a “stranger in a strange land”. I found your site when looking for ideas of what to do when I visit my twins’ classroom for Hannukah. I have since done Purim and Passover at their school as well.
A few things we do around here to keep the kids and frankly the adults who are often the grumpy ones at the table, amused:
The kids build pyramids out of blocks/legos before the seder to prime the pump.
We tape a picture of a Passover symbol on everyone’s back as they come in the door and then we play 20 questions to figure out what is on our back.
If you ask a good question you get a piece of candy. It took the kids a while to realize what they had to do to get the candy. I just start throwing it at them if they ask a good question.
We all get a scallion to “beat” each other with during Dayenu.
Of course we re-enact the plagues. I just put a drop of red food coloring in a glass and then pour water into the glass for blood. The highlight for my kids is probably being allowed to throw marshmellows at everyone during the plague of hail.
We retell the story with hand puppets and songs set to contemporary music or children’s songs, or show tunes.
I also have a toy lamb on the seder plate instead of a shankbone because we don’t eat meat at our house.
I know the game would be a great addition to our seder. I love the idea of using it for the Sequencing of the seder. At the moment I have chart paper with the order on it and everyone has an index card with a picture and they have to tape up their picture when we get to their card in the seder. I would love something new for this year.
Thanks so much for the website!
And thank you for the great comments! I just might try your idea about taping a picture to guest’s backs… good icebreaker. And, for some reason, I’ve never thought to use one of my many toy lambs (don’t ask) to act as the shankbone on the seder plate. I will, this year.
Good questions = thrown candy = brilliant.
You are doing beautiful work making the story and holiday real, memorable and fun for your family and guests. Yasher Koach.
Contest is officially closed, and an email has been sent to our winner for confirmation. THANK YOU to everyone who commented here and on the Facebook thread. We all love reading the helpful ideas!