Plagues? Let my people go? Passover symbols? All these activities make up the story of Passover as told from the Haggadah. Part of learning about Passover involves experiencing the different customs and traditions of Passover. Here are a few easy to prepare ideas.

Teaching the Story of Passover: The Ten Plagues

Making Moshe's stick.

According to the Biblical story of Passover, Moshe raised a stick which had the power to separate the Dead Sea so that he could safely lead the jewish people to freedom from their slavery under Pharoach's reign in Egypt.

Let your child color/dot dot it. On top of it you can either put stickers of the plagues such as animal stickers, grasshopper stickers, frog stickers... or you can get the pictures. Frogs is the plague all children like.

Learning about Passover Food: Matzah

Give your child three matzahs to decorate (paint lines on it). Cut one in half and put it in a plastic bag. To get the 'ridged look,' have the kids color the paper brown on lego. Because of the bumps, paper will look 'ridged' creating the real matzah look. It really works!

The rectangles and circles of a Seder. This is a perfect time to teach young children about shapes. Have children cut out a big circle and smaller circles.Glue pictures to the circles. Hide them under a sheet and ask them to name the objects.

Baking matzah. Usinga small box, have the children glue on brown rectangles as bricks, making it an oven. Cut open one of the wider sides as the door to the oven. Have the children put white matzahs on a spatula and place it in the oven.

Teaching about Chametz

On Passover, Jews do not eat bread. instead, they eat matzoh, or unleavened bread. Jews didn't have time to let their bread rise as they had to quickly escape from Pharoah's rule.

Hide pieces of bread (option: in silverfoil) around the kitchen and have your child find it.

Have children tape two pieces of paper together. Teach them the word 'dustpan' and gather their pieces of bread in their dustpan. Young children can also sweep around the house.

Passover songs

The tune is sung to: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

Matzah, matzah what do you say?
On Passover (Pesach) you eat me right away.
Wine wine what do you say?
Four cups at the seder we drink, hurray!
Marror marror what do you say?
When daddy eats me he says 'oh vei'
Chametz chametz what do you say?
Eight days of pesach I must stay away.

Fun Passover Recipe

Young children love preparing Passover desserts. Yum!

Persian Fruit Salad

* 2 seedless oranges, peeled & cored
* 2 apples, peeled & cored
* 2 bananas, sliced
* 2 cups pitted dates, chopped
* 1 cup dried figs or apricots, chopped
* 1 cup orange juice
* 1 cup almonds, chopped

Place fruit in a serving bowl. Pour orange juice over fruit and mix gently. Garnish with almonds or coconut. Cover and chill several hours before serving.

(recipe- Penina W. Freedenberg, Rockville, MD )

Dorit Sasson is a freelance writer, educator and founder and director of the New Teacher Resource Center. To receive your free eBook, Taking Charge in the Classroom and other information for new teachers, visit the New Teacher Resource Center at