quick, cute, and no craft foam!
Sometimes, half an hour is all you have, yet kids need to make something useful for the seder table. So, let’s welcome the 30-minute Matzah Tray to the ranks of the 30-minute Afikomen Bag, the 30-minute Felt Matzah Cover, and the 30-minute Three-Pocket Matzah Holder. Continue reading
Seder step stations
I nearly called this post “Passover Carnival,” but was afraid you’d get the wrong idea. The wrong idea is a spree with lice races, chocolate matzah painting, origami frogs, and crafts. Continue reading
![Open the [LEGO] door for Elijah](https://biblebeltbalabusta.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/lego-open-door-for-elijah-annotated.jpg)
Open the [LEGO] door for Elijah
fishy or fab?
Minimalist, instant, kinda pretty, and absolutely free: the Tuna Can Seder Plate. Continue reading
Afikomen bag materials (spelling guide, bag, labels, yarn). The purple one is finished.
Afikoman bag: a seder-centric craft for those of us with 30 minutes or less. It’s practical, decent-looking, durable, and fun for kids to make. Continue reading
printable sandwiched between 2 plates
Another 30-min.-or-less seder-centric project. The goal: a seder plate kids create and then actually use. These can get wet and wiped (but not submerged). Continue reading
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Tagged Passover, seder, seder plate
Beaded, felt matzah cover
My Earnest Sunday School Teacher Hat is on again:
Here’s another less-then-30 min. Passover project for seder use.
Our art classes are 25 -30 min., which includes the giving of context and the cleaning of mess, so we gotta move FAST. Continue reading
matzah-look, three pocket holder
Quick post for a quick project.
I only have 25 to 30 minutes with a class, but need to produce something functional and fun for Passover, so I choose carefully. Continue reading
setting the Seder Plate
several years of old placecards
Have an index card? You have a frog. And a placecard, an afikomen clue, a keep-hands-busy-activity, a plague, and a jumping frog game. Continue reading
LEGO Seder Plate
The LEGO minifigs are jealous. This time, we’ve made a seder plate sized for the big people. Continue reading
DIY kit for the search for leaven
Bedikat Chametz, or Search for Leaven is a quick, hands-on, kid-friendly and extremely memorable activity right before Passover starts. Basically, we hide bits of bread/leaven/chametz, let the kids find them at nightfall, and then destroy the bits the next day (the morning before the first seder). In short: hide + seek + darkness + flames = awesome. Continue reading
Hub Cap Seder Plate. Is it the first? What with all the upcycled hubcaps online, I’m surprised. I see bird baths, bird feeders, wall clocks, yard art, but no seder plates. Then again, a Venn diagram of Jewish + DIY + Automotive Enthusiast would not reveal much of an overlap. Continue reading
Just for fun: two LEGO seder plates and a table, sized for a minifig Passover.
Now, I’ve got to get busy making the real thing….
Have a happy Passover!
See below for the bits we used. If you make your own, please post pics to my Facebook page. Continue reading
Grating horseradish root for Chain. Annual photo op.
Passover seder has passed.
Did you buy a big ol’ horseradish root for Maror this year?
Did you toss it on the compost heap yet?
Well, run right out and pull it back off. You can use it to grow a new one for next year’s seder. Even a small piece should take root just fine. Your kid can help you, and then proudly claim ownership at Passover.
HOW WE CAN USE IT WITH KIDS Continue reading
Posted in Activity, Jewish parenting, Passover
Tagged activity, gardening, Maror, Passover, seder, seder plate
Plagues toy assembly line. The kids sort and fill each Box O’ Plague before each seder.
In DIY Passover Plagues Box, I gave reasons and instructions for a kid-created seder activity: a box of plagues toys. You can keep the toys in a bin and pull them out every year, adding to and tweaking the selection as your kids grow. Preferably, they do the adding and tweaking with you.
Our favorite way to store and use the toys is in a home-made Box o’ Plagues, created from an empty matzah box. Continue reading
DIY plague toys
DIY Passover Plagues Box and Dramatic Re-enaction
Everything about the seder is designed to teach kids. Symbolic foods, the four questions, songs, Rabbinic lessons and the many discrepancies therein: eating yet more matzah for dessert (afikomen), leaning on pillows at the table, all that dipping? But usually, seders are so long and boring not much learning goes on, except learning that seders are long and boring.
Re-enacting the plagues can make seders more educational and fun. We are commanded to think of ourselves as slaves in Egypt: toys, props and simple costumes facilitate this leap of the imagination. Continue reading
Seder plate at Target: cheap and cute
At Target yesterday I found an endcap full of seder dishes. This discrepant event was so discrepant I almost didn’t believe it. Five bucks for a large, melamine seder plate with shallow depressions for each symbol, and with the English and Hebrew name for each.
Hebrew at Target?
And for $1.99 you can get a coordinating square matzah plate with just the three little Hebrew letters that spell matzah.
So very surprised and happy. Maybe melamine isn’t the earth’s friendliest material, but I am overlooking this fact in favor of the bigger fact that Target is selling dishes for my holiday.
Maybe this is a yearly occurrence where you come from, but not around here.
Todah rabah, Target.
Bubbe in action. So much so, even the camera shook. A blurry shot of Bubbe singing Chad Gadya.
We live in Nashville. Our families do not. At Passover, we vie with all sorts of other events and obligations and complications to get family here for seder. Usually, we must place our order for Bubbe at least a year in advance. Bubbe, now a widow and free agent, triangulates amongst Nashville, Philly, and New York for her seders. Although we placed our order for Pesach 2009 early enough, health issues cropped up that made this much-anticipated visit impractical. So, we had to go another year without Bubbe’s famous Yemenite rendition of the Hallel, and without Bubbe’s table-slapping, wine-glass-spilling gusto throughout the whole, never-long-enough-for-Bubbe evening.
She spent seder #1 with the Philly mishpacha, just a short drive away from her Center City high-rise. For seder #2, we figured she would settle Continue reading
Swim Noodle Menorah
LEGO Gragger
Altoids tin travel menorah
Spin it, Eat it: The Caramel Dreidel
Edible dreidels, regular and mini
Jonah and the Whale Cracker
DIY Lego Mezuzah
PEZ + Mezuzah = PEZuzah
Menurkey (repurposed figurine)
DIY LEGO dreidel
LEGO minifig Passover seder table
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Bible Belt Balabusta 
