Plague shtick! | Imamother

amother

Forestgreen

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 5:43 pm

Blood- pour red jello powder into a clear cup of water
Frogs-stretchy plastic sling flying frogs
Hail-freeze a hot candy inside a small ice cube
Darkness-someone told me their father set the shabbos clock to go off for a few minutes & made sure they were up to "choshech" at that time, but I don't think we could ever pull that off
Any other ideas?

amother

Lemon

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 10:31 pm

Blood- something red. (Where can I get divided cups? )
Frogs- plastic sling frogs
Kinim- plastic bugs.
Wild animals- bought fake animals/ if have purim costumes can put on
Dever- laid down farm animals/can dress up I n purim costumes and fall
Shchin- kidd made the leaves are scratching themselves
Barad- had clear superballs with red inside.
Arbeh- gtasshoppers....I got fake ones
Choshech- "mitzriez" got blindfolded. Jews fid not (with scarves )
Bechoros....had kids make believe they were looking for. A Jewish house...someone dressed up as Pharoah in pjs. Etc

I also had a bunch if masks we put on...everyone got one to wear and acted out the makkah.

ra_mom

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 10:55 pm

amother wrote:

Lice - plastic insects
Wild animals - animal finger puppets
Cattle disease - cow mask
Boils - sticky hands colored with dots
Grasshoppers - jumping grasshoppers [does anyone have a more accessible idea?]
Darkness - sunglasses
Makas Bichoros - dancing in pj's (Pharoah in pajamas)

mommyla

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 11:13 pm

amother wrote:

Blood- something red. (Where can I get divided cups? )

My son once came home with a really cute project. It was an opaque lidded hot cup with a smaller plastic cup glued to the bottom inside of the cup. He put red drink mix of some sort in the plastic cup, then filled both with water (not too much or the red spills over into the plain water) and stuck a straw into each cup through the lid. Drink from both at the same time and you get red in one straw and clear water in the other!

imasinger

Mon, Apr 01 2019, 2:57 pm

For those that include this in their seder, when do you do it, and how does it affect the length of the seder? There's so much to do and talk about already, and the mention of the plagues comes relatively late, I never quite figured out how people worked it.

miami85

Mon, Apr 01 2019, 4:52 pm

Can I ask an honest question? In all my years at pesach sedarim with kids and adults, there is always like a million divrei torah about avodim hayenu and tzei ulemad etc and lots of kids saying the mah nishtana each in a different language that by the time we get to the makkos its a "race to the finish line" to get to the seudah and afikoman b4 chatzos. We've tried getting the kids to "save it for shulchan aruch" or "save it for the day meal" and it never works. How do you have time for shtick for the makkos?

amother

Forestgreen

Mon, Apr 01 2019, 5:45 pm

amother wrote:

Good ideas.
Boils- bought mirrors in dollar store and made red dots on them with permanent marker. When looked in mirror you had boils
Choshech- either blindfolded or last few years we did sunglasses

Great idea for the boils!!

amother

Lemon

Mon, Apr 01 2019, 5:48 pm

miami85 wrote:

My kids are little and we r going the Seder alone for the first time.
I always went to my parents and we limited each person to two divrei Torah by the seder and then u can say them during any meal on Yom tov. We

Rena K

Tue, Apr 02 2019, 4:08 pm

IMHO, this shtick is not appropriate for the topic. Makkos were not silly. As a matter of fact, we are instructed to pour off a little wine for each makkah to remind ourselves to treat it as a solemn event. We are happy to have been saved but these were G-d's creations suffering so we need to treat it with the appropriate attitude. Do you want your children giggling over someone else choking on blood, doubling over from boils, eaten by animals? I think we want them to grow up with sensitivities... so maybe "shtick" can be saved for other things, like leaving mitzarayim or crossing the yam suf, which can be made into a dance or something exciting... just some food for thought.

cozyblanket

Wed, Apr 03 2019, 11:14 am

Rena K wrote:

Isn't our job to make the story come to life to teach our children?

Wed, Apr 03 2019, 11:26 am

cozyblanket wrote:

Isn't our job to make the story come to life to teach our children?

Yes. That's why we dip out a little wine (or juice) for each plague, to reduce our happiness even when we feel joyful for redemption, and refrain from licking our fingers afterwards - that would be too much fun (for kids) and we are trying to understand how to be sad and happy at the same time. The symbolism works. Adding plague schtick at the Seder detracts from bringing the story to life.

Playing with plague toys during the holiday or having plague-themed desserts at other Pesach meals is in questionable taste but IMO is harmless.

ra_mom

Wed, Apr 03 2019, 1:27 pm

miami85 wrote:

The mitzvah of the night is v'higadita l'vincha bayom hahu. That is the ikkur and since we have little children the only divrei torah we do are age appropriate.
We don't do food shtick but we do use props. We're supposed to tell them on their level, like the tum, she'eino yodeiah lishol... We don't stretch out the hagadah in a way that they can't handle.

amother

Fuchsia

Wed, Apr 03 2019, 3:23 pm

I posted earlier that we do have what could be considered tacky shtick and spread the "makkos" through the seder and I'd like to respond to those who expressed their offense.

Sometimes you need to choose how to get your particular child engaged in the seder and Pesach as a whole.

For my preteens, creating the "barad" ice cubes, or acting out/ demonstrating the makkos keeps them at the table and engaged. Keeping the kids up and "into" the seder is helpful as well. We also limit kids' divrei torah and spread them out over the rest of the yom tov meals.

I learned that it is appropriate to use nuts and candy to keep the kids awake and engaged if that's what you need to do. I'm trying to keep my kids engaged.

I plan to take my preteens to the dollar store during their pre-pesach break, give them $15, and task them with coming up with shtick/ table decoration for the seder. extra points for adding something they learned about the haggada at school. I feel it enhances our seder, and allows them to be engaged and excited.

Much of pesach prep is hard and painful for my kids. There's a lot of manual labor and "no" or "not yet, I've got to finish _____." I try to include some fun. I find that even something that may be in less-than-good-taste could draw my major Pesach-resenters out and feel good about their contribution to our table.

I consciously DONT encourage my kids to "make special Pesach desserts" as I resent the inappropriate objectification of food during the Jewish holidays.

Rena K

Wed, Apr 03 2019, 6:29 pm

cozyblanket wrote:

Isn't our job to make the story come to life to teach our children?

Yes, but it should be in good taste. Unfortunately, the recent trend to make makkos "silly" has really gotten out of hand... We should act out the other parts like matza, leaving mitzrayim, crossing the yam suf, but laughing over someone dying or suffering seems like awful chinuch...

Shuly

Wed, Apr 03 2019, 6:39 pm

We buy little toys representing each of the makkos. Throughout maggid, whenever the kids start to lose attention, we get them back into it by pulling out the bag and asking who remembers what the next makkah is. Each kids gets a little prize representing that makkah which keeps them involved in the seder.

The main mitzva of the night is v'higaditah livincha, not saying over deep thought provoking divrei torah that only the adults understand.