Practicing telling the Passover story in many different ways is always part of our Passover preparation and this DIY Kinetic Sand Small World Passover Play is a fun, hands-on way to tell the story and enjoy sensory exploration.
What You’ll Need
- DIY kinetic sand: 5 parts play sand to 3 parts flour (or potato or corn starch if you want to have this activity available for play during Passover) to 1 part cooking oil; mix well
- Sensory bin or tuff tray
- Passover story objects such as pyramids (we made ours from Woodpeckers Crafts wooden triangle, paint and sand; use WithLoveIma5 for a discount!), peg doll characters (yep DIY too and you can make them so easily yourself!), plague representations.
- Blue glass gems if you want to create the Nile or Red Sea
Putting It Together
- Set up your small world play with your DIY kinetic sand and the blue glass gems and whatever Passover objects you’ve gathered.
- Read a Passover book that tells the story (we like Let My People Go but I always have to fill in the beginning and ending bits that the book doesn’t include) or use our Passover Story Sequencing cards to introduce or review the Passover story. This time we used the PJ Library River Ride poster and let it be our guide.
- Sit back and let your kiddo explore the small world play. They can practice telling the story, move things around and explore in whatever creative and imaginary ways they desire!
Finished & Loving It!
We do so many sensory bins and even when using the same or similar objects, every play looks a little different and is always a meaningful experience. I liked creating our own kinetic sand because it’s a different sensory texture and also connects to the Passover story of the Egyptian desert. And it’s so fun to squish and smoosh and build with!
I had so much fun making some of the new parts we used in this small world play. Can you find the pyramid and the character peg dolls? Check out our reel on Instagram to see how I made them! So simple, inexpensive, customized and of course fun!
I loved watching the kiddos explore this small world play. They are so used to telling the Passover story but were excited to do it once again with this set up. They couldn’t get enough of the kinetic sand or the Passover story representations. I had pulled out a few different plague representations, blue gems that could be the Nile or the Red Sea, and a little DIY tambourine. The kids had their choice of what to play with and what they wanted to use to tell the Passover story. And then lots of opportunities for free play, of course!
Lots of Passover review took place as well as creative and imaginary play! The beauty of small world sensory play is letting your child explore it as they wish. It’s always a beautiful and fascinating adventure!
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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