Passover Crafts - Grandparents.com

Passover is a holiday known for its preparations. While it may be hard to get grandchildren excited about the holiday through cooking and cleaning, bringing out the craft supplies may pique their interest. By using art as a medium to prepare useful items for the Seder (the traditional Passover meal and related customs), memories as well as mementos will be created.

“Holiday crafts that can be used year after year are fun to make and serve a practical purpose,” explains Laurie Bellet, an art specialist at Oakland Hebrew Day School in California and a project developer for Torah Aura Productions, a Jewish publishing company. “Most importantly, they memorialize a child’s development at that specific stage in his or her life.”

Here are three Passover crafts Bellet created for toddlers and preschoolers, grade-schoolers, and tweens:

Toddlers and Preschoolers

TEN PLAGUE PLACEMATS

The flexibility in the instructions for making these holiday placemats is perfect for little ones. Depending on their patience and interest, they can create one placemat with a collage of the ten plagues, or ten placements with a plague represented on each one. After the Seder, Bellet recommends using magnets to showcase the artwork on the refrigerator.

Materials:
White construction paper
Crayons or markers
Watercolor paints (must have red, blue, black, and green, at the minimum)
Paint brushes
Red tissue paper
Glue
Stickers of frogs, cows, stars, and number 1s
Stamp pad
Magazine cutouts
Scissors
Red glitter or puffy paint
Kosher salt
Clear contact paper or access to a laminating machine

Instructions:
Place white construction paper on a flat surface. Use the gathered materials to create representations of the ten plagues listed below. Once the placemats are dry, laminate or cover with clear contact paper.

Use these ideas to get you started:
• Plague #1, Blood: Use red watercolor paints to create a river. Enhance by gluing scraps of red tissue paper.
• Plague #2, Frogs: Draw lily pads. Paste frog stickers on the lily pads.
• Plague #3, Lice: Use a stamp pad and finger print the lice bodies. With a marker, draw the legs.
• Plague #4, Wild Beasts: Glue animal cutouts from magazines.
• Plague #5, Cattle Disease: Stick cow stickers upside down.
• Plague #6, Hail: Use watercolors to paint black brushstrokes. When dry, dribble glue and sprinkle with salt.
• Plague #7, Boils: Draw pictures of people. Use red glitter or puffy paint to depict the boils on their bodies.
• Plague #8, Darkness: Draw the sky with a black crayon or marker. Paste down star stickers.
• Plague #9, Locusts: Draw or paint a field of grass. With a stamp pad, fingerprint the locust bodies and use a marker to draw the legs and wings.
• Plague #10, Smitten of the firstborn: Paste number 1 stickers and cross them off with a big “ X.”

For Grade-Schoolers

Charoset, a mixture generally made from apples, nuts, raisins, and wine or grape juice, is traditionally eaten at the Seder. This craft, which turns a clay pot into a homemade charoset dish, is imbued with symbolism.

Consider the symbolism of the clay pot, and try to have your grandchildren comprehend what life was like as slaves in Egypt. Pretend that the tiles are bricks and the glue is mortar. As the grandchildren build this structure, talk about what it means to be a slave and compare that to the freedom of being an artist.

“Kids learn best when they are playing, so use this craft to enter into their fantasy land,” says Bellet.

One large clay pot can be decorated for the Seder table. Or, decorate mini clay pots that can be placed at individual place settings for each guest.

Materials:
Clay garden pot in any size
Tiles, beads, and other mosaic pieces
Glue, poured into a dish
Craft sticks
Plastic or glass cup for inserting inside the clay pot (use shot-size glasses for mini pots)
Ribbon trim

Instructions:
Turn the clay pot upside down and place it on a flat surface. Dip a craft stick into the glue and apply glue all over the pot. Starting at the base of the lip and working in a circular pattern around the pot, cover the pot with the tiles, adding more glue as necessary. Fill in the gaps by gluing beads or additional mosaic pieces.

When dry, about 30 minutes, turn the pot right side up and insert the plastic or glass cup that will hold the charoset at the Seder table. Embellish by tying a ribbon around the edge of the glass.

For Older Grandchildren

PASSOVER PILLOWCASE

Pillows are traditionally brought to the Seder for the participants to feel like royalty. Designing a pillow according to a Passover theme has a sophisticated and creative feel, especially for tweens who crave self-expression.

“The opportunity to make something that is exquisitely your own creation while interpreting an age-old text in a unique way is a powerful experience,” says Bellet.

Make sure to discuss with the grandchild about what she chooses to represent on the pillow and why. Use this as an entry point to discuss the Seder and its symbolism.

Materials:
White pillowcase in muslin, silk, or cotton
Pencil
Acrylic or fabric paints, or fabric markers
Paintbrushes
Stencils (Bellet recommends finding Jewish-themed stencils from Tjssc.com)
One piece of cardboard, about the size of the pillowcase
Pillow stuffing such as fiberfill or an old pillow

Instructions:
Choose a theme from the Haggadah, the special Seder prayer book. Insert the cardboard inside of the pillowcase (this will prevent the paint from bleeding onto the other side). Use a pencil to design a drawing on the pillowcase based on the theme. Use the stencils at will.

Paint the over the pencil drawing using the acrylic or fabric paints. Set aside to dry (it should take about an hour, depending on the thickness of the paint). Once it’s dry, iron to set the paint. (Read the label on the paint container to make sure it's okay for ironing.) Stuff with fiberfill or a pillow.

As the Passover preparations get into full swing, give grandchildren the opportunity to become part of the excitement. When the family sits down at the Seder table, they will able to point to their project and say, “Look at what I did.”