10 Tips for "Surviving" The Seders

1. Do Song Parodies
2. Autographs: each guests signs the inside cover of their haggadah. That way, you have an ongoing record of who shared the holiday with you in past years. It’s also fun to see who used your haggadah before you.
3. Have each guest bring a different haggadah and offer insights from “their” haggadah.
4. Fond Memories: Go around the table and share your fondest memory of Passover as a kid.
5. Assign parts to each guest (e.g. 4 questions, 4 chldren) and tell them to come prepared with a song, a skit, a question, an activity for that section.
6. Ask interesting questions throughout. Examples: If you were a film director and could hire any actors you wanted, who would you have star as Moses, Miriam, Pharaoh? If you could invite anyone in the world to this Seder, who would you invite and why?
7. Iron Chef charoset: have each guest bring a different ethnic charoset and have a “contest.”
8. “New” Seder plates: what would today’s symbols of slavery be and who are the oppressed? Example: chocolate, coffee, etc.
9. Do Torah study at “Arami oved avi.”
10. Don’t use a haggadah at all- write up the “rubrics” and improvise!

WITH KIDS

1. Personalized Mats: Use large, white poster board or construction paper to create place mats decorated with Passover games and age-appropriate questions. 
2. A maze (children can use their fingers to trace their way from slavery to freedom).
3. Matzah Man, and other silly stuff: Draw a blank square and say it’s a piece of matzah. Or give each kid a square of matza. See if the child can imagine ten, twenty or thirty different ideas as to what the square could become. Matzah Man? A matza house? etc.
4. Purchase some dollar store “prizes” for kids. When they ask a good question (which is the point!), they get a prize.
5. Build “tents in the desert” out of sheets etc and let the kids climb in, have time out, come back in. Stock the tents with toys and even sand to play in!
6. Paper bag drama: Gather together various household items (a tennis ball, a sponge, a timer, a remote control, a sock, a light bulb, a bar of soap, etc.) together into a bag.  At various points during the seder, invite someone to pull an item out and offer an explanation of how the item fits into the Passover story!
7. Passover “mad libs”
8. Passover “taboo”- make cards with Passover themes (e.g Pharoah, charoset) and the person has to describe them without using hint words (e.g. leader, apples) while others guess what they are.
9. Have kids walk around and “wash” everyone’s hands at Urchatz.
10. Afikomen: have the kids hide it and adults have to find it!!