Ok, its been a while and alot has been happening in our little world, but we are back and “school” is in full swing!

Preparing for Pesach, we have started making our own Haggadah. Every day we pretty much make another page.

So far we have done the following:

Kadesh- I drew a big kiddish cup and the kids had to figure out which colors would make purple to color it in, which was really fun. We used paint and they figured it out pretty quickly. (Red and Blue:)

Urchatz- Kiddos traced their hands on a piece of paper then cut them out by them selves and glued them onto another paper. We then drew a “cup” on another piece of paper in a different color and they cut it out again and glued it onto one of the hands

Karpas- We cut out different size and shape leaves in all different color greens and they glued them onto a page (my kids love gluing so we stick with it!

Thats where we are at right now.

When it comes to the 10 plagues, last year we did tons of hands on stuff which I plan to do again:

Blood- Took babyfood jars and poured water into them then dropped red food coloroing in some of them and discussed which jars belonged to who and why

Frogs- We had these cute little green plastic frogs that you push down and they jump which the kids had a lot of fun with. Then we hid them all over the house to show that the frogs were EVERYWHERE

Lice- I drew a picture of a Mitzry on a piece of card stock and made little buggys out of brown paper and they glued them on

Wild Animals- We have national geographic magazines and we cut out pictures of wild animals and made a collage of all types of wild animals and discussed the difference

Cattle Disease- We took our plastic farm animals and took a box of different size bandaids and put them on the animals

Boils- Took a doll and took red circle stickers and stuck it all over her

Hail- we made icecubes and dropped drops of red food coloring in so when it froze it had a dark red dot inside which was like the fire, pretty cool….

Grasshoppers- we got long weedws from outside and glued it on paper then made grasshoppers oout of pipecleaners and attached them to the grass

darkness- we made a tent and made it really dark and used flashlights inside, kids loved it

I also plan to talk about all the numbers of Pesach-
4 cups of wine
4 sons
4 questions
10 Makos
14 Steps
My son loves numbers, so this is a big one for him!He loves usign his fingers to count and adding and subtracting, so will incorporate math in here somehow…

We also play Malkali Shmos which is an amazing DVD of the story of Pesach (google MALKALI) as well as Pesach CDs with all the Pesach songs all day in the house so the kids are constantly listening to it and getting to know the songs

My kids are not into cleaning but will find a way to make it fun:) They do love sweeping and using the wipes so maybe we can get somewhere!

I have so many photos of all of this but just need the time to post them-

I have TONS of Pesach ideas from my sister-in-law who is a Preschool director, so if anyone wants in depth info, let me know and i will email it over…

Hope to post again soon…Aloha~!

Yes, I am SO serious- I made these brownies today (the recipe origonated from a Pesach Brownie recipe that I made that was so delicious I had to try it with real flour) and had some left over Broccoli/Peas puree and decided to throw it in and see what happens.

The result? I left the tray of Brownies on the kitchen counter for everyone who comes into my kitchen (and there are MANY people in and out of my kitchen!) to take. My kids LOVED them and begged me for more (I put away some of it in the freezer) and anyone who took a piece (there is nothing left) told me how DELICIOUS they were. My husband could not believe the ingredients when I told him! I was sceptical to try them, since I knew what was in them:) but they were actually delicious! I will admit that there is definitely alot of sugar in the recipe and I am sure you can use a healthier substitute like agave nectar, which I have yet to try. But since my kids really dont eat any candy or junk food, a little sugar once in a while is okay in my books!

So I will post both the Broccoli brownie recipe as well as the Pesach brownie recipe:

BROCCOLI BROWNIES (love the name:)

-4 eggs

-1 cup oil

-1 3/4 cup sugar

-3/4 cup cocoa

-1/4 cup wheat germ

-1/2 cup spelt/white/whole wheat flour (I used spelt)

-3/4 cup broccoli and peas puree (take 1/2 cup steamed broccoli + 1/2 cup steamed peas and puree)

Preheat oven to 350.

Take all the ingredients and mix together in a bowl. Put in a well greased baking tray and bake for 1 hour. Enjoy!

PESACH VANISHING BROWNIES

-4 eggs

-1 cup oil

-1 3/4 cup sugar

-3/4 cup cocoa

-3/4 cup potato starch

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix all ingredients together. Pour into a well greased baking pan and bake for 1 hour. We doubled the recipe and made them for Shabbat during Pesach. Lets just say that they didnt even make it to candle lighting they were so good!

And the best thing about both of these recipes is that the kids can make it with you and learn so much just from measuring and watching it go from ingredients to a batter to a cake! And its really good for them to clean up afterward, and helpful to you too!

 KADESH: Cuty mixed blue and red paint to get the purple wine color and then painted his cup of wine as well as inside the letters

 URCHATZ- Cuty traced his hands and then I cut them out for him. He then painted the kvart and glued them all on by himself

 KARPAS- I cut out leaves for the parsley and Cuty stuck them onto the parsley that I drew for him. He then glued actual salt onto the bowl for the salt water. The way he did this was I poured salt into a bowl and he used a spoon to put the salt on the glue. With the remaining salt he poured it onto a tray and played with it, making pictures with his finger and just enjoying the salt through his fingers

 YACHATZ- We worked on the concept of the right, left and middle box and where each Matzah goes. Cuty didnt want to break the middle matzah though so we just stuck a whole matzah in the middle

 MAGGID- Using the theme of numbers, we discussed the 10 Plagues (brought down to a 3 year olds level), 3 Matzos and 4 cups of wine, along with matching stickers… but Cuty had his own agenda with the stickers

 RACHTAH- Same thing as URCHATZ, but added the brachah

 MOTZI MATZAH- Had Matzah Stickers so Cuty made a “matzah Snake”

 MAROR- I drew the maror and someone crying because it is so bitter- Cuty stuck pieces of foam on it

 KORECH- We made a sandwich out of construction paper and pieces of foam stickers

 Munchkin had her own project while we did some of our pages:)