Passover coloring pages and seder activities for kids

Passover 2027 begins at sundown on Wednesday, April 21, according to Hebcal's Pesach 2027 calendar, and My Jewish Learning adds that the first seder is that night and the second seder is on the evening of April 22. For young kids, the best Passover activities are the ones that happen at the seder table: coloring the seder plate, practicing the Four Questions, hunting for the afikoman and listening to the story with something in their hands. Below are coloring page ideas that get the details right, crafts from Jewish family organizations, and picture books to read in the weeks before.

Every tradition here is linked to a Jewish organization that explains it. Families keep Passover in many ways, and your own family's practice is the one that counts.

Passover in a few sentences for small kids

ReformJudaism.org explains that Passover is celebrated for seven or eight days depending on family and communal custom, and that the Haggadah guides the seder so that each generation retells the story of the Exodus. My Jewish Learning describes the seder as a festive meal with stories, songs and ritual foods including matzah and maror, and notes that matzah recalls how the Israelites left Egypt in such a hurry that their bread had no time to rise.

For a three-year-old, something like this works: "A long time ago our people were not free. They left in such a hurry that their bread stayed flat. Now we eat flat matzah and tell the story every year."

Coloring page ideas that match the seder

The seder gives you a ready-made set of pages, because every object on the table has a meaning a child can point to.

The seder plate. ReformJudaism.org's seder plate guide lists the items: the roasted egg (beitzah), bitter herbs such as horseradish (maror), a second bitter vegetable that is often romaine lettuce (chazeret), the shank bone (zeroa), charoset made of fruit and nuts, and a green vegetable such as parsley (karpas). The same page says vegetarian households may use a beet in place of the shank bone, and that tradition does not dictate the shape or size of the plate. Draw a big circle with six smaller circles and a label under each.

Matzah. A rectangle with rows of dots and stripes. Toddlers can color it any color they like.

The Four Questions. ReformJudaism.org explains that the telling of the story begins with the youngest person at the seder asking the Four Questions, which start with "How is this night different from all other nights?" A page with that line across the top and a big blank space for your child to draw "what is different tonight" is a good one for preschoolers practicing.

Elijah's cup and Miriam's cup. My Jewish Learning describes Miriam's Cup as a newer ritual object placed beside the Cup of Elijah, filled with water as a symbol of Miriam's Well, which gave the Israelites water in the desert. Two goblets side by side, one for wine or grape juice and one for water, make an easy page.

Baby Moses in the river. The same My Jewish Learning page notes that Miriam appears at the very beginning of the Exodus story, watching over her brother Moses in the Nile. A basket among reeds is a gentle scene for the youngest kids.

The afikoman hunt. A house with flaps or hiding spots drawn in: under a pillow, behind a plant, in a bookcase. Let your child draw where they would hide it.

After you draw, trace over the lines in black marker and make copies so every cousin gets one. Our guide to how to print coloring pages covers getting dark, clean lines from a phone photo.

Crafts and printables from Jewish family organizations

• A paper plate seder plate. PJ Library's DIY seder plate uses a paper plate, six mini cupcake liners, glue and markers: glue the liners around the edge, label each with a seder plate item, and decorate the rest. It doubles as a coloring page and a real plate for the kids' table.
• Free Passover printables. PJ Library keeps a list of Passover printables that includes a paper Passover scene, a stop-and-start card game, question catchers to fold, and a ten-scene version of the story that becomes a tablescape.
• A seder made for 2- and 3-year-olds. ReformJudaism.org's guide for young children suggests involving toddlers in cleaning and cooking, decorating the room with their artwork, and putting a child-sized table at the seder with butcher paper taped down instead of a tablecloth and fat crayons set out. That last idea is the simplest coloring activity of the night.
• Music and the afikoman. The same guide recommends egg shakers, maracas and tambourines for the songs, and small age-appropriate prizes for the afikoman search.

Keep any real candles and the hot food a grown-up job, and let kids "serve" the paper plate.

Passover picture books for young kids

None of these repeat our Hanukkah book list. All are in the Seattle Public Library catalog:

Book	Author	What it is about	Good for
Afikoman, Where'd You Go?	Rebecca Gardyn Levington, illustrated by Noa Kelner	A hidden-pictures story where readers search the pages for a wily piece of matzah	The afikoman hunt, before the seder
Under-the-Sea Seder	Ann D. Koffsky	Miri is too restless at the seder, goes under the table with her cat and imagines visiting friendly sea monsters	Kids who find the seder long
The Passover Mouse	Joy Nelkin Wieder	A mouse steals a crumb of bread before Passover and ends up bringing the neighbors together; includes background and a glossary	Talking about clearing out bread
Pirate Passover	Judy Press	A storm washes the pirates ashore, and they find a house with an open door and are invited to the seder	Silly read-aloud for preschoolers
Alone Together on Dan Street	Erica Lyons	A girl in Jerusalem practices the Four Questions on her balcony and brings her neighbors together for Passover	Kids learning the Four Questions

Read one, then hand over a page from it: a sea monster at the seder, a mouse with a crumb, a pirate ship at the door.

A page with your own family at the table

The page a child keeps is the one about their own seder: their grandparents, their cousins, the dog under the table, the spot where the afikoman was hidden last year. Draw it as stick figures, or trace a family photo. Our guide to turning a photo into a coloring page for free shows how to do that at home.

If you would rather not draw, Colorkin can make a coloring page of your family from a photo, drafted with AI illustration tools and checked and finished by a person. The free sample is an easy way to see whether your kids take to it. We are also making a Jewish American coloring storybook about baking challah for Shabbat. It is not on sale yet.

For the fall holidays, see Rosh Hashanah activities for kids, and for grandparent stories from many cultures, including a Jewish bubbe, see picture books about grandparents. More holidays are in our family and heritage guides.

Questions parents ask