Our Purim celebrations continued a little longer than usual but now we have packed up our Purim decorations and are moving onto weeks of learning and preparation for Passover with our 2023 Passover Shelfie + Starter Activities!
This year I’m focusing on activities in the following progression: why we celebrate Passover (the story) and how we celebrate it (prepare the house by getting rid of chametz, participating in a seder). We will review the Passover story and its main parts, then review how we, as a Jewish community, remember this story by participating in a seder.
What You’ll Need
- Your favorite Passover books (check out our recommendations here!)
- Your favorite Passover arts, crafts, toy sets, and activities that you already own and/or look below to see if any of ours inspire you to create similar ones!
Putting It Together
Here is the list of activities that I set up. Get inspired or grab whatever of your own! I also plan to add new activities to this Passover Shelfie as we create them.
- Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners
- Passover Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
- Passover Seder Nomenclature Cards
- Passover Book Box + Reading Bingo Challenge
- Giant Pyramid
- Basket of Passover Dress Ups
- Matzah Meal Tracing Tray
- Weaving a Baby Moses Basket
- 10 Plague Counting Cards
- Pharaoh “Let My People Go!” Posting Box
- Miriam’s Mini Timbrels
- 10 Plague I Spy Sensory Bottle
- Seder Plate Posting
- Bulrush Posting
- Matzah Oven
- DIY Wooden Seder Plates
- Our Favorite Haggadot
Finished & Loving It!
Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners
Yay! A brand new collection of simple, engaging and meaningful hands-on activities for early learners all about Passover! This Activities Packet contains many of the beloved activities found in previous holidays’ packets, as well as some special just-for-Passover fun!
The Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners is a really wonderful way to have activities ready, sitting on your kitchen island or in a drawer. It makes it super easy to just pull out a page (or more!) whenever your early learner wants something to do or you want five minutes of Jewish learning!
Some of the activities found on today’s 2023 Passover Shelfie that are included in the Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners are:
- Passover Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
- Passover Seder Nomenclature Cards
- Passover Reading Bingo Challenge
- Passover Shape Cards
- Passover Alphabet Flashcards
- 10 Plagues Counting Card Game
Some of these activities are also found on their own (if so, I’ve linked the separate product above), but some are only in the Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners. My kids have absolutely loved these holiday activities packets. I hope yours do too!
Passover Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards
We love introducing the holiday with our Passover Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards. In just a few minutes the kids review why we celebrate the holiday and examples of traditions and ways we celebrate. They also get to practice picture matching, and, for the older ones, reading. We love these cards! They are available on their own or as part of the Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners.
Passover Seder Nomenclature Cards
These Passover Seder Nomenclature Cards are another really simple and quick review (or introduction!) to a big part of the Passover celebration, the seder! The kids can review the main symbols of the seder, practice identifying and matching the pictures, and practice reading and learning the names of the symbols. These cards are also available on their own or as part of the Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners. The ones included in the Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners have new photos of Elijah and Miriam’s cups that I absolutely love!
Passover Book Box + Reading Bingo Challenge
Don’t worry, I did not forget another holiday tradition and favorite: our themed book box and reading bingo challenge! We love gathering all our holiday books in one spot. It makes them so easy to find and grab for cuddles and reading.
The Reading Bingo Challenge is a fun way to connect some important symbols and traditions to the holiday while reading beloved books. The Passover Reading Bingo Challenge is available in the Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners, but also here as a free printable. Enjoy!
Love our Passover Book Box? Me too! It tells the story of Passover so the kids get a quick review every time they look at it! Simple how-to can be found here!
Giant Pyramid
You know I love setting the stage for our holidays by helping the kids learn and review the stories through hands on activities (and lots of retelling!). This year I thought it would be fun to create a large pyramid that the kids could use in their storytelling as well as an activity in itself.
The pyramid is relatively easy to make, just cut four triangles out of cardboard (yes, you need to find pieces large enough for your needs!) then tape together to form the pyramid.
In our Shelfie it helps set the stage for retelling and pretend and imaginary play. Later in the week I plan for the kids to finish the pyramid by using sponges to stamp “bricks” onto the pyramid. This way they get to use it now as well as later as a hands-on art activity to really bring this part of the Passover story to life.
Basket of Passover Dress Ups
I always love including themed dress up opportunities. For years and years we used to dress up in tunics and head scarves for our seders. The kids weren’t interested in doing that last year … and yes, my heart cried a little. But deep breaths and big girl pants. And I was able to set out the head scarves on the Shelfie and they totally loved them (last year too!). Such a simple opportunity for creative and imaginary play!
Matzah Meal Tracing Tray
We love tracing trays and often use them with a salt filler. But for this Passover unit, I’d thought I’d try a matzah meal tray to give the kiddos a different texture to work with and to connect it to Passover (of course!).
You could invite your kiddos to practice any kind of tracing—different types of lines are great for pre-writing skills! I set out our new Passover Shape Cards as well as our Passover Alphabet Flashcards and left it up to my kids to decide what to practice drawing in the matzah meal. Both these cards are available in our Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners!
A full how-to of our Matzah Meal Tracing Tray can be found here!
Weaving a Baby Moses Basket
This year’s hands-on learning activity for the Baby Moses part of the Passover story was to make our own basket for Moses by the kids weaving! We haven’t actually done a lot of weaving so this was a wonderful activity to practice that skill. And it does take practice! Such an amazing fine motor skill activity, as well as hand-eye coordination and concentration.
10 Plague Counting Cards
I made these cards years ago and they continue to be well-loved and such a great way to review the 10 plagues and practice counting! They have the numeral and an array, as well as the corresponding number of images of the plagues themselves. Woo hoo! The cards can be found in the Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners or on their own, as a free printable here!
Miriam’s Mini Timbrels
I have long admired Make It Jewish’s Miriam’s Mini Timbrels activity and finally set it up this year. The kids were so intrigued by the mini bells and worked hard to wrap the bracelets to create their own Timbrels. Such a fun and beautiful way to represent this part of the Passover story.
10 Plague I Spy Sensory Bottle
I loved when we first made this 10 Plague I Spy Sensory Bottle because it’s such a fun way to review the plagues and of course get some sensory feedback. I updated it last year and it has lived in our Passover storage tub, so such an easy thing to pull out and add to the shelf!
Pharaoh “Let My People Go!” Posting Box
This is another updated activity. The original was simple and worked, but I loved adding the images of the plagues on the popsicle sticks last year. It provides more exposure and another opportunity to review the plagues. And to practice fine motor skills, of course!
Seder Plate Posting
You know me, I love my simple DIY posting activities and apparently couldn’t get away with just the plague posting box this year! This Seder Plate Posting is another example of a quick and easy themed posting activity.
I spray painted a box white. Which box you might ask? Why a fabulous empty matzah box! That’s right, I used the box from the matzah I used to make our Matzah Meal Tracing Tray and instead of tossing it, I reused it to create a fun Passover activity. Boom!
Next I glued on a seder plate print out. I used an exacto knife to cut slits in the box, one for each ritual food. I glued one ritual food cut out to a popsicle stick then invited the kids to match the ritual foods and post them in the slits. Ta-da! Seder plate review, matching practice and fine motor skill development. Yay!
Bulrush Posting
This Bulrush Posting is a much pared-down version of our Baby Moses Sensory Bin from last year. I absolutely LOVED this sensory bin! Since we represented Baby Moses with the weaving this year I didn’t want to replicate the entire thing again, but loved being able to quickly pull the bulrushes from our Passover storage bin and set them up on the Shelfie.
They are a fun fine motor skill activity but also give sensory feedback from the way the pipe cleaners and the DIY bulrush tips feel. And having to maneuver the pipe cleaners take lots of focus and concentration. And they are so cute! LOVE IT!
Matzah Oven
Here’s another simple Passover DIY. Spray paint an old box, one that has a lid that flaps down. Glue on dials and the number 18. Set out some pretend matzah, oven mitts, baking tray. Let your kids practice making matzah.
Last year I created a more old-school matzah oven. I love both of them and so did the kids!
This year’s let us review how the matzah must be baked within 18 minutes!
DIY Wooden Seder Plates
Aren’t these wooden seder plates absolutely gorgeous? I loved this craft last year and love displaying them on our Shelfie as a beautiful decoration and a wonderful review of the seder plate.
The wooden circles (large and small) are from Woodpeckers Crafts. Use WithLoveIma5 for a discount! The seder plate coloring page is by @JewishTogether. We love her coloring pages so much! They are such a wonderful meditative activity for adults and children alike!
Our Favorite Haggadot
I love displaying the haggadot we use each year. Since we do two seders, we use the PJ Library one for the first and the Hug It Out for the second. It adds some variety but also a foundation of family-friendly haggadah that really work for my family. Highly recommend both of these if you are looking!
We love pairing both haggadot with the amazing LeeLaaLou Haggadah Companion! This is such a wonderful activity to have available while kids are waiting during the seder (or in the weeks before!). They are engaging with the holiday and learning so much.
Getting in the mood …
This year Passover starts Wednesday, April 5th and ends at sundown Thursday, April 13th. Our Purim celebrations were extended a bit as the synagogue only just hosted the Purim Carnival yesterday! We will also be on vacation for Spring Break, right before Passover, but I know that if the only Passover learning and activities my kids do are from today’s Starter Activities they will still be in good shape since we covered both the Passover Story and the seder with so many fun, hands-on activities. But have no fear, I still have many activities planned for the weeks we are home!
I hope you found some inspiration from our 2023 Passover Shelfie + Starter Activities for beginning your Passover 2023 adventures! Continue with us, either here and/or on Instagram, as we explore the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt, how we celebrate our freedom with a seder and all the bits in between!
Chag Passover Sameach!
We have a whole page dedicated to Passover, our Passover Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the Passover activities we plan to do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Passover Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, a wonderful way to introduce Passover! And, now we also have all 13 Jewish holidays bundled together in A Year of Jewish Holidays 3 Part Cards.
If you want to have a ton of Passover early learner activities ready at your fingertips, try our Passover Activities Packet for Early Learners! I am so excited about all the Passover-themed literacy, fine motor skills, math, and play fun!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!
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