Review of Jewish Holiday Games For Little Hands by Ruth Esrig Brinn.  With Passover coming up soon I thought it would be good a good time to review this terrific book and share an activity from it related to Passover.  This book has activities for all the Jewish holidays, with multiple activities for each holiday.

Here is a list of the holidays covered in the book:

• Shabbot
• Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur
• Sukkot & Simchat Torah
• Hanukkah
• Tu B’Shevat
• Purim
• Passover
• Shavuot

There are at least 5 activities for each category.  Most of the crafts and activities are simple to make.  They tie in the meaning of each holiday to help children learn from the activity or craft.  There are also activities that you can photocopy – like game boards, coloring activities etc.  If you celebrate the Jewish Holidays and have young children you definitely want this book!!

Leaving Egypt (This activity is from the book Jewish Holiday games for Little hands)

Supplies:

• Two Small suitcases or duffel bags
• Two sets of clothes ( for example-pants,shirts, hat, socks, mittens, jacket)

To play:

1. Divide children into two teams
2. Fill both Suitcases with similar items (each has a set of pants, each has a pair of socks, each has a hat etc)
3. Set a goal line across the room from each team
4. The first player from each team empties the suitcase and puts on all the clothes
5. They then close the suitcase and run with it around the goal and back to the beginning
6. Then they take off the outfit and put back in the suitcase
7. They then hand suitcase to next person on their team
8. The team that has everyone go and sit back down at the beginning first WINS!

The message is that the Jewish people left Egypt in a hurry running away from the Pharoah.  Reading a book about Passover and talking about how the Jews left quickly before playing this game will reinforce the message.