Mah Nishtanah Puppets -Preschool Printable Activity

Craft these super cute Mah Nishtanah puppets as a fun prompt for little kids to recite the four questions! When you’re done, check out this Kids’ Interactive Haggadah Craft Template too – they go great together! This post contains affiliate links.

I love using puppets as prompts for young kids – they are a great visual to remind them what comes next. They also allow kids who are a bit more shy to do things through the puppets.

Since the 4 questions – or “Mah Nishtanah” is recited at the Passover Seder traditionally by the youngest, it was just begging for a puppet to guide them through taking the limelight.

I designed these Mah Nishtanah puppets with the preschool crowd in mind, as a simple color, cut, and craft project. My four year old made her own set (though she got a bit impatient with the coloring and wanted to just cut it.)

You can get it in color-in or full color – based on how much crafting you actually want to do.

The Mah Nishtanah puppets are available for a few bucks in my Etsy shop and on TpT. Purchasing premium products from me enables me to keep doing what I do, to give more focus to my Jewish blog, creating authentically Jewish resources for educators and parents.

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About the Mah Nishtanah puppets

To turn these into puppets, and not just pictures on sticks, I tried to bring these to life. You have the two halves of each question as separate puppets, with expressions and characterizations based on the four questions.

Puppets included

On every night we eat Chametz and matzah: matzah and bread hold hands and friends.
But tonight only matzah – Matzah sits alone arms crossed
On every night, we eat all vegetables – a pepper, cucumber, and carrot are chilling together.
But tonight we eat Marror – Horseradish root sheds a tear next to a pile of shredded horseradish
On every night we don’t even dip once – A bowl of dip hides
But tonight, twice – A bowl of salt water dips a potato in itself and a bowl of Charoset dips romaine lettuce into itself (bitter herbs) – and they hold hands of course.
On every night we eat sitting or leaning – a chair brings a pillow along for the ride
But tonight we lean – a pillow lounges on a recliner

Each one has an abstract background designed to make cutting easier, but still lend character to it.

The creation process

I illustrated these digitally using Adobe Fresco to create the coloring page version.

Then, I got a little carried away coloring it myself with alcohol markers (I used Prismacolor Premiere alcohol markers for this) and decided to scan it and offer it as a colorized version.

I did need to fix it up a bit, so I brought it back into Fresco, created a crayon-ish outline on it, and turned it into the full color printable.

Download the Mah Nishtanah Puppets

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How to put together the Mah Nishtanah puppets

Supplies

The template printed on cardstock paper
Markers, crayons, etc (if using the color-in version)
Craft sticks – jumbo or regular size work for this
Scissors
Glue (regular white school glue works great)
Optional: laminating machine and 3 mil pouches

Instructions

1. Color your Mah Nishtanah puppets (if using the color-in version).

2. Cut them out. Laminate if you want, cut again. Or laminate first and then cut…

3. Glue a craft stick to the back

Ask the four questions with confidence!

Alternative crafting ideas

There are many different ways you can use these.

Inside a Haggadah – I did have them in mind as a fun addition to a scrapbook Haggadah project as well. You can put them in an envelope and glue that to the page for a Mah Nishtanah page. Or skip the puppet bit and just glue them in order to the page.
Finger puppets – Add a finger-diameter strip of paper to the base of each to make finger puppets instead of stick puppets.
Back to back – If you want kids to have them paired, you can glue them back to back sandwiching a craft stick. The shapes will not match up – so you’ll have overlap of the one on the other side. You can fix this by creating a generic shape to fit both.
Flipbook – I love making little flipbooks with binder rings. You can do that with this – just find a place to punch each puppet where it won’t disturb the design.
Matching game – Make a mini matching game by gluing them on index cards and having kids flip them over to find a match. You can print two copies so you have more of a game and exact matches, but the cooler way to play is that they need to match the “on every night” with its coordinating “but tonight”.

If you haven’t yet, you can get the Mah Nishtanah puppets in my Etsy Shop or on Teachers Pay Teachers.

GET IT ON ETSY get it on tpt

Mah Nishtanah Puppets -Preschool Printable Activity