How To Celebrate Passover With Kids

We are to teach our kids the way of the lord constantly. One of the best ways in my opinion is by celebrating God’s ordained feasts.

Think about it what are your best memories as a child? We generally remember the fun times, holidays, get togethers with family with big celebrations, right? While there are several feasts one of my favourite ones to do every year is to celebrate Passover with kids.

This holiday then leads into 7 days of Unleavened Bread. This is a great way to teach our kids about Jesus and God’s love for us, the power of Jesus resurrection, a time for acknowledging our sins as we eat unleavened bread and have fun trying new recipes and celebrating with friends and family.

I am not an expert in this area, but I do want to share what we do and give you some ideas on how you can celebrate with your family too!

Why Do We Celebrate Passover As Christians?

I choose to celebrate Passover instead of Easter for many reasons. If you would like to go into more depth about it I wrote a post on Why Christians Should Celebrate Passover Here which you can read.

The bible does say that these are God’s feasts! Jesus came and taught the Jews and his disciples how we are to live and then he sent his disciples out to teach the world.

Jesus’s disciples still did the feasts after Jesus passed away because these feasts are to be done forever according to God’s word.

What Instructions Does The Bible Give?

Thankfully the bible has given lots of instruction on how these feasts should be celebrated. Exodus chapter 12 goes into great detail on the dates to celebrate Passover and how. Here are the highlights for you.

1. You are not to do any work on the first day or 7th day of this feast. Only food preparation is allowed but no going to work or doing any sort of housework is to be done on those 2 specific days.
2. For 7 days you are not to eat any bread with leaven in it. Now these days I believe that would be sourdough and baking soda. Only flat breads as leaven symbolises sin and this is our way of humbling ourselves before God.
3. On the first day you are to eat lamb. Now traditionally it was a whole lamb that got roasted over a fire. I do believe God understands our limitations now so if you can’t get a whole lamb buying pieces of lamb and cooking it however you can should be fine. Do the best you can is my belief at least.
4. Jesus mentions drinking wine in Matthew as a remembrance to him. I give the kids grape juice. We eat the unleavened bread known as Matzo and talk about it representing Jesus body that was pierced for us.

You can look a bit more into it if you like but these are some of the main points!

How Do We Celebrate Passover With Kids

1. Cook With Kids

Foods is a big deal. What is a Feast without the food. This is a time to try new recipes and expand your horizons. Here are some ideas on foods you can try at home and make with the kids.

1st day we do lamb roasted or slow cooked. I like to make a sweet dessert called Haroset using apple and cinnamon as well as a bitter salad. We drink grape juice and have Matzo bread as well.

Other ideas throughout the week can include Baklava, Matzo soup, Crepes and Matzo bread. We make soups and generally have a brisket too but it’s fun to make things you don’t normally do together as a family. Kids especially enjoy making the desserts and the matzo balls for the soup!

2. Afikomen Scavenger Hunt

Instead of an easter egg hunt why not hunt for the forbidden leavened bread. Make a little Afikomen bag or any bag will do and find pieces of bread.

Try not to touch it, use tongs or dustpan and brush and place the bread pieces in the Afikomen bag that they decorated. Then throw out the unleavened bread you find.

So that we aren’t wasting food you can compost it or give it to animals as well. Talk about how you are throwing the sin out of your life and explain why we don’t have leavened bread during this time.

3. Read And Watch The Stories

This is a great time to read the story of Jesus his birth, his death and his resurrection. I also like to read the story of Moses and the first exodus as this was the beginning of this holiday being celebrated.

If you have younger children watch the prince of Egypt which is the story of Moses and Passover. If you have older kids you can watch The Passion Of The Christ together.

I personally find it very hard to watch that movie (I cry too much!) but you can as a family as a reminder of what Jesus did for us!

4. Re In act The Story

Kids love to act. Why not put on in a little play, do a finger puppet show, or let them do some sort of enactment. Honestly kids can have so much fun doing this and being able to put on a little show for parents and friends.

You can keep this as minimal or as intricate as you like. Having different props they make and even creating costumes! This is a really fun way to celebrate Passover with kids.

5. Paint A Picture

We found on YouTube a couple of different people who did easy water painting for kids. For this specific one here is the link. This was really fun and pretty easy to do.

You can do water painting or some sort of drawing that represents this holiday. It can be a cross image, maybe it’s a frog or one of the plaques. This is something we do together as a family.

My eldest 8 and even my littlest one 2 years old has fun drawing or painting some sort of picture. This is a really fun way to celebrate Passover with kids.

6. Paint or Decorate Their Own Wine Glasses

This is very fun. We love to decorate or paint plastic or glass wine glasses. They will use these cups on the night of Passover and throughout the week.

I will serve them grape juice in it during the week. They love having their own special plastic or glass wine glass as it looks fancier.

1. You can use yarn and a glue gun holds better.
2. Use acrylic paint that is suitable for glass or plastic.
3. Put fake diamonds and all kinds of fun things on your glasses to make them special. It’s about creating fun traditions together and lasting memories while praising God.

7. Make A “GingerBread House”

We have done this once, but I want to recreate this again this year. Instead of a gingerbread Christmas style we do the red over the door and decorate it with edible flowers or other fun things.

Make it to resemble more of the Jewish style homes with a flat roof which is also easier. It resembles the homes they lived in when they were in bondage and God did the miracles and passed over their homes.

Conclusion

I hope you found this post helpful on way to celebrate Passover with kids. Have fun this holiday creating memories and celebrating one of Gods Feasts.

Let me know in the comments what you do with your kids on this holiday? What traditions do you enjoy and will give any of these ideas a go. Have a happy Passover everyone!