Ten Plagues “Shtick” Ideas for Your Passover Seder

Image via Martha Stewart

By popular demand, I’m bringing this post up to the top of KOAB. Long-time readers my remember this one from ten years ago (where has the time gone?), when I first introduced seder “shtick” for the Ten Plagues at our seder. My kids LOVED it so much that we still do it every year. Now my younger niece and nephews have gotten into it.

I hope you won’t find this too irreverent, but here is is what we do for our Ten Plagues “Shtick”:

Dam / Blood – I make up little mini containers of Passover strawberry-flavored jello – voila! “Blood”. Check your Passover aisles at the grocery store – you should be able to find some strawberry or cherry jello. (There are 100 containers in a package, so these will last you for quite a few years!)

Tzfardaya / Frogs –The first year I did this, I got these stretchy frogs from Amazon (collect them at the end of your seder – and they’ll last from one year to the next).  Or you can get a whopping 144 of these plastic jumping frogs. Talk about “Frogs were jumping EVERYWHERE!” The most popular frog option I ever did, though, was the chocolate frog! I just poured melted dark chocolate into this mold. HUGE HIT! (We also serve them for dessert!)

 

Kinim / Lice –I used little silver confetti, which we had with our gift wrapping supplies. But these “Creepy Ants” might do a good job of standing in for lice.

Aruv / Wild beasts –I picked up some plastic wild animals — everyone got their own “beast”(oh my!).These jungle animal-topped bubbles are cute, too – and good for entertaining little ones at a long seder.

Dever / Cattle disease – Cow masks. I can’t find the ones I got, but here’s a set of felt foam cow masks. Perfect – just use a red Sharpie to make some “pocks” on your mask.

Shechin / Boils – I have used bubbles in the past, which admittedly is a bit of a stretch. Last year, I “upgraded” to red bouncy balls (I had wanted to find an all-red set, but ended up getting this assorted set and picked out the red ones. The rest got used in birthday goody bags.) You could even use red dot stickers.

Barad / Hail – I use mini Kosher for Passover marshmallows, which was for sure is my kids’ favorite part! This price on Amazon isn’t horrible, but check your super markets, as you may be able to find it cheaper locally than what I’m seeing online. One year we did end up with a mini food fight situation, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. 😉

Arbe / Locust – I originally bought a dozen plastic locus, but this Melissa & Doug plastic insect set from Amazon looks a lot friendlier than our plastic locus (which actually did scare my daughter — oops!).

Choshech / Darkness – For this one, everybody gets a pair of cheap sunglasses — like this one dozen pack of Neon Wayfairer sunglasses. We lose a pair or two every year — but these have mostly lasted us for the long-haul.

Macat Bechorot / Slaying of the first born – Of all the plagues, this was the hardest for me to figure out. It’s an extra morbid plague, so it feels overly irreverent to make it into shtick. I pushed through. We use these stretchy skeletons, but I also think that these LEGO skeletons could be fun if your kids are LEGO-obsessed. (Look what this super creative parent did — a whole LEGO Ten Plagues set-up!)

As for how we “presented” the plagues, I just toss these out onto the table as we read out each plague, but I like Martha Stewart’s idea to give each child (& adult?!) their own “makot bag”. It could even do double-duty as your place setting. Of course, I don’t think my kids and nephews and nieces would be able to wait on opening theirs.

What fun things do you do at your seder to keep the young (and young at heart) educated, entertained and engaged?