Pre-Pesach Fun in Kindergarten

Pesach Memories

We have been working on making our own haggadot in Kindergarten using a template from My Haggadah: Made it Myself. So far this has been a fun experience with my students. I can definitely recommend this for family and school fun. The format reminds me very much of the Anti-Coloring book series that my daughter used to do when she was young in the 1990s. Instead of giving you something to color in, you are given an imaginative prompt that invites you to create something all your own. So much better! We are also learning to sing Echad Mi Yodea? b'ivrit which is pretty exciting when you are five or six. It is a good song to learn in Hebrew since there is so much repetition.

The Pesach Seder is the experiential curriculum par excellence. The Rabbis understood that the Seder was not just a commemoration of sorts but was also a yearly teaching tool. It is a chance to bring our young and new learners into our culture and to reinvigorate all of our learners into the Jewish experience. They made the Seder interactive and fun as well as moving and meaningful. All things which engage us and invite us to asks questions, to debate, to argue, to think deeply, to laugh, and to be a part of a community.

We all have our favorite parts of the Seder. Mine are koreich, making the Hillel sandwich. It is so delicious to taste the contrast of maror, charoset, and matzah, the bitter, sweet, and plain all rolling around on my tongue. My second favorite part is the singing. It is hard to pick but I think it would be Adir Hu, followed by Echad Mi Yodea, and then Hallel.

What are your favorite parts of the Seder? Why? What are some of your best or funniest memories?

My daughter was on call during Residency one year and she was trying to explain the Pesach Seder to her colleagues so she downloaded a Seder plate off the internet added a little matzah and an orange (because she is a good feminist!) and voila. This is the sort of thing that happens to doctors at 3:00 am when they are not delivering babies, that is.