Creative & Frugal “Shtick” Ideas for Your Passover Seder

Image via Martha Stewart

Last year, I introduced seder “shtick” for the Ten Plagues at our seder and our kids LOVED it.

They begged for it again the second night and have been asking me since Purim if I’ll be doing it again this year.

I hope you won’t find this too irreverent, but here is is what I did last year:

Dam / Blood – I bought Kosher for Passover strawberry-flavored jello powder, placed a teaspoon in each of the kids’ glasses, then poured water into their glass – voila! “Blood”. Check your Passover aisles at the grocery store – you should be able to find some strawberry or cherry jello.

Tzfardaya / Frogs – I got some plastic toy frogs from Oriental Trading Company. Shipping might be tight from OTC, but you can probably find these at any brick-and-mortar toy store or you can get 144 jumping frogs from Amazon for $5.44.

Kinim / Lice – I used little silver confetti, which we had with our gift wrapping supplies.

Aruv / Wild beasts – I picked up some plastic finger puppets of lions, tigers and bears (oh my!), again from OTC, but I see the same ones at Amazon for $7.77. (I saved mine from last year in our Pesach tubs, so this is a one-time expense.)

Dever / Cattle disease — Cow masks. I can’t find the ones I got, but I see that this set of 12 animals for $6.37 has a cow in it. It also has “wild beasts” so you could use this for both plagues.

Shechin / Boils — I used bubbles, but I was thinking of maybe trying to dye them red this year. You could also look for small red jelly candies or even red gumballs.

Barad / Hail — I used mini Kosher for Passover marshmallows, which was for sure my kids’ favorite part!

Arbe / Locust — I bought two dozen plastic bugs from OTC, but this Melissa & Doug plastic insect set from Amazon for $6.99 looks a lot friendlier than our scary insects (which actually did scare my daughter — oops!).

Choshech / Darkness — Everybody got a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses, which I think they broke before the second seder. You can get a dozen Neon Wayfairer sunglasses from Amazon for $7.21, which I think I’ll do since ours from last year are long gone.

Macat Bechorot / Slaying of the first born — We used glow in the dark skeleton key chains, but I found these “bendy” skeletons on Amazon, which are cute and not too scary. (Of all the plagues, this was the hardest for me to figure out.) If you use the code YAGOOZON, you’ll save 25%, making a dozen of them $4.01. I’ll grab these, too, I think.

I just tossed 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”.  (Leave it to Martha to one-up the seder shtick!!!) If you’re having a large crowd, you could even use the bags as the name cards. Of course, my kids wouldn’t be able to wait on opening theirs – so we’d have to hold off.

You should also check out this awesome idea for an Edible 10 Plagues on Cook Kosher, by the talented Abbey Wolin of Not2Shabbey fame. I love her ideas — and I bet my soooo-hungry-by-this-point-in-seder kids would, too!

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