Organizing a toddler friendly seder

I finally get around to this post as Passover draws to a close. But hopefully this will be useful to someone for next year.

We had 11 adults and 6 toddlers (from 14 to 20 months old) at the seder this year. My husband was pretty intent on hitting all the key elements, too, so we did a little figuring ahead of time on how to do this and keep the kids engaged.

First, finding the right haggadah was key. Some attendees were brought up in Orthodox households, some have very little connection to Jewish traditions. We're pretty happy with the haggadah we ended up with: Family Haggadah: A Seder for All Generations by Elie Gindie. It has Hebrew for those who prefer, plus English translation AND transliterations. The musical notes are written out for the song lyrics in case you have instruments around. There are great pictures to hold kids' attention and a pretty pared down service. People arrived at 4:30 to get situated, we started the seder at a little after 5 and wrapped things up by around 7:30/8.

This was our order of events:

• Gather around to bless the children
• Candle lighting and then promptly taking the candles behind a baby gate.
• Kiddush - drink wine to steel your nerves for all to come
• Four questions - sung by all, all musical numbers at this age are a hit
• The Passover Story - main points
• Plagues - have photocopies of an illustrated version of the ten plagues for parents to show the children
• Dayenu - another great sing along
• Discuss/bless/eat the symbolic foods - even one year olds can take part in this. Just use potatoes instead of parsley (OK by ashkenazim) and make sure the charoset is nut-free. We didn't give them the maror.
  
• MEAL - ours was toddler friendly and veggie. I'll post about that another time.
  
• Post-meal highlights (reconvening on the living room floor): singing Eliyahu Hanavi and opening the door, and a chorus of Next Year in Jerusalem. Chad Gadya for tots with real stamina.

Only other notes for a baby/toddler friendly service. The stuffed seder plate and matzah set (above right) was fun. And my girls are way into this new children's book "Five Little Gefiltes". It's a Five Little Ducklings parody that's part early Yiddish indoctrination and part Where's Waldo played out with gefilte fish. Whaddaya talkin'?! Go and get it!