During the Passover Seder, a meal to remember the slavery of the Jews in Egypt and their release from it, there is a portion of the ceremony in which the ten plagues are listed. Traditionally, participants take one drop of wine (or juice) from their cup using a knife in order to slightly reduce the enjoyment to acknowledge the suffering of the Egyptians. The ten plagues were, in order, water that turned into blood, an overwhelming infestation of frogs, an inundation of lice, swarms of flies, cattle disease that only affected the Egyptian cattle, boils that were only on the Egyptian’s skin, hail that only destroyed the Egyptian’s crops, locusts that ate only the Egyptian crops, three days of darkness for the Egyptians, while the Jews had light, and the death of the Egyptian firstborn children and livestock. The Jewish firstborn were spared by the Angel of Death because they were warned to mark their doorposts with blood.
One fun thing to do with plagues at a Passover Seder is to sing songs involving the plagues. There are versions of Passover songs that are posted on the Internet. These songs can be sung to the tune of popular music. For example, there is a Passover song that is to be sung to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Someone could also pick their own song to use for a tune and write their own lyrics.
Doing fun things with plagues is also a good way to keep children involved. The host could purchase plastic bugs or stuffed frogs, for example. Small plastic animals such as cows could symbolize cattle disease. Also, one could use food coloring to turn red the water at the Seder table.
Another option is to discuss some of the plagues. One person could be assigned to each plague in advance. Or pick one plague and discuss it at length. Kids could play charades and adults could guess which plague they were impersonating. Finally, capping off the plagues portion of the proceedings can be a rousing rendition of Dayenu, a song and word which means “it would have been enough for us” if the Lord had done any single thing in the song.