Today we gathered all our Passover books, then made our Passover Book Box and played our fun Passover Reading Bingo Challenge! We love books in general and find them so helpful to introduce or review a holiday. And then continue reading them throughout the holiday because they are so fun! Making a Passover Book Box helps organize all your books for the holiday and is also a fun and engaging art process and a review of important symbols of the holiday for your children.
I really wanted this Passover Book Box to depict the Passover story and serve as a reminder of important elements of that story every time the kids looked at the box or grabbed a book from it. This book box required more prep than my usual crafts but the Passover story has so many elements! As always, you can take what works for you and adapt anything to make it work for your family. We also did the parts of this craft throughout the day instead of at one sitting, which worked well for us.
What You’ll Need
- Empty box
- Paint
- Paintbrush
- Glue
- Scissors
- White cardstock, multiple sheets
- Brown and/or yellow paint
- Scrap fabric
- Passover Book Box printable
- Green construction paper
- Blue construction paper
- Stuffing or cotton balls
- Sticks or brown pipe cleaners
- Red and yellow tissue paper
- Googly eyes
- Red construction paper
- Packing paper or brown paper
- Push pin
- Piece of cardboard
- Blue treasures
- Brown construction paper
- Paint sticks or other paints, markers, colored pencils, crayons
- Jewels
- Passover books! Check out our favorites at our Bookshop.org page here.
Putting It Together
- Paint an empty box that’s large enough to hold your Passover books.
2. Before each craft we read the corresponding part of the story from the wonderful PJ Library River Ride booklet. They have a one-page Passover in 10 Scenes summary that you can print out.
3. To depict the Jews in slavery in Egypt we made pyramids. Cut triangles out of cardstock then paint them. We mixed yellow and brown paint to encourage color exploration (but the resulting color is not the most attractive, ha!). Instead of using paint brushes I had the kids use crunched up scrap fabric and stamp the paint that way. It added additional texture to the pyramid and was a fun process. You could easily use fabric, paper towels, sponges, paint brushes or just finger paint!
4. Next we made baby Moses and I think it came out so adorably. Print out the template and have your child cut out the baby, or assist in cutting. Cut green construction paper and draw parallel lines down each side as guides for the kids to cut then fold into the reeds. Glue baby Moses into the green reeds then onto a rectangle piece of blue paper for the river.
5. For Moses fleeing and becoming a shepherd we made sheep. Print out the template and have your child cut out around the sheep. Glue stuffing or cotton balls to make the sheep’s wool.
6. To make the burning bush, glue some sticks or pipe cleaners to a rectangle piece of cardstock. Next have your child tear up some red and yellow tissue paper and glue the scrunched up pieces to the cardstock and sticks to make it look like it’s on fire.
7. To represent the plagues, we chose to make a frog because we love frogs. We actually made this same craft last year as part of our DIY Plague Bags. It’s from Easy Peasy and Fun and is totally easy and completely adorable. Follow her instructions and you’ll have a cute bookmark that also works to represent the plagues on our book box!
8. For the fleeing in haste we made a super simple matzah craft. Place some leftover packing paper or other brown paper on cardboard and poke holes into the paper with a push pin. It will remind you of the little holes in the matzah. Cut a smaller square and glue it or glue in its entirety to a rectangle piece of cardstock.
9. Next we made the parting of the Red Sea by gluing blue treasures on parallel sides of a brown paper rectangle. The treasures we had were a mix of beads, jewels, and whatever else I found in our treasure bin. Blue buttons, torn bits of paper or tissue paper would also work. This could also be a great sorting activity if you wanted to ask your kiddos to sort out all the blue colors first!
10. The final depiction is after the Jews safely cross the Red Sea and they dance in jubilation and in freedom. I asked the kids to paint whatever they thought happiness would look like. We also had treasures available as well if they wanted to glue some on.
11. Once all the above story elements dried, we glued one of each to our book box.
12. We then gathered all our Passover books, put them in the box and started our Passover Reading Bingo Challenge!
13. If you have multiple children or your child made extra story cards, we glued ours onto a large piece of Kraft paper along with the PJ Library story print out. We attached this to our wall and it now functions as a beautiful Passover decoration and also a story wall. Fabulous!
Finished & Loving It!
This was a more time-intensive craft than we are used to but the kids were very excited. They really enjoyed listening to the part of the story then creating it on their piece of cardstock.
Using the different art processes not only kept things exciting and engaging, but also worked a lot of different skills. There was a ton of fine motor skill development practice with the cutting, pincher grasping to pick up small treasures, and painting the glue.
We are working with cutting specifically with my preschooler. He was initially disinterested in it, but then started saying it was too hard for him. He could not figure out how to fit his fingers into the traditional kid scissors so I bought the loop scissors to have him practice opening and closing his hand. This will also strength his hand and help him understand how the cutting process works. He will move up to normal kid scissors when he’s ready.
The kids were so happy to see their final products displayed on the book box and on the poster. They are able to instantly connect part of the Passover story when they see each card, which is exactly what I hoped would happen. And of course, they had fun while engaging in this meaningful activity, which is always the #1 goal!
How do you enjoy telling the Passover story with your children?
For more fun kid-friendly Passover activities, check out our Passover Round Up 2021 page! You can also follow us on Instagram. And, if you want to make sure you don’t miss any of our posts, subscribe to get new blog posts in your in-box!
If you’re ready to start Passover crafts and activities right now, there are many fun and meaningful experiences from previous years right here!
Passover 10 Plague Playdough Fun
Passover Themed Bath: The 10 Plagues
Passover 10 Plagues Sticker Wall Activity
I Spy Passover Plague Activity
Passover Matzah Sensory Exploration Play Activity
10 Plagues Passover Sticker Wall
Passover Story Character Puppets
Passover Fine Motor Skills Activity
For general information about Passover, we love exploring the following resources:
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