With school age children home around the world, how does one teach Passover to the youngest among us?
Anna Pomson, Jewish educator and Project Coordinator at Mosaic United, has taken her own children and, through sharing her teachings online, many others on an experiential learning journey from Egypt and bondage to Exodus and freedom.
Passover for Toddlers in Quarantine
by Anna Pomson
When you aren’t allowed to leave the house and day care is closed, but this is the first year that your two year old can understand the Passover story, you need to get creative.
As a Jewish educator, it is important to me that my two year old daughter is introduced to the Passover story whether or not we could go outside. Together we went through the story of the Jews in Egypt and their redemption.
We started by building pyramids from Legos and Magna-Tiles, then filled up our laundry basket with water and made a little foil basket for our bottle cork Moses to see if he would float. We learned about all the plagues together, and eventually made matzah and left Egypt in song and dance.
When it came to seder night it was wonderful to see the impact of our daily lessons and how she was able to engage with what was going on at the table. She understood why we were singing Avadim Hayinu, she understood why there was matzah on the table, and she enjoyed dipping her finger in the grape juice for each of the plagues she had learned. Using only the materials we had in our home, we were able to fulfill the mitzvah of ve’higadeta l’bincha – to teach our children the story of our people.