Bunny Bread

I came across an adorable recipe for "Teddy Bear Bread" in The Family Fun Cookbook, and just had to adapt the idea to the Easter theme. So here is my rendition: may I present to you "Bunny Bread"!

First, I had my son wash his hands thoroughly with soap and water, and emphasized the importance of washing up always before cooking!

After I washed up too, we then gathered the ingredients. I spoke to Bode about the importance of having all the materials "in place" before starting because it makes cooking so much easier that way. I threw around the fancy French term for this, "mise en place" (literally "putting in place"), that I learned in a cooking class way back when.

THE RECIPE:

Ingredients used:
1.5 cups warm milk + .5 cup warm water
1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar
5.75 cups of all-purpose or whole wheat flour
2 tsp. salt
Oil  
Dried fruit (raisins, dried cherries, blueberries, etc)
Egg

Step one: Pour milk-water combination into a bowl, make sure it is warm. Add a packet of yeast and then sugar. Whisk until dissolved. Here I talked about how yeast is actually alive but it has been "asleep" while in it's packet. The sugar and warm liquid "wake" it up and helps it to grow.

Step two: Measure 2 cups of flour and whisk it into the mixture. I talked to Bode about the "proper" way to measure out flour- fluff it up first and then spoon it into the measuring cup, then level off with the flat edge of a knife (although he kept wanting to smoosh it down with the spoon, oh well!)
Let dough sit for 10 minutes. While the dough "proofed", I showed Bode the bubbles that were being formed and told him that that meant the yeast is now awake and working. The bubbles will create air in the dough and help the bread to rise when left to sit and the process will continue in the oven as well.

Step three: Stir in salt and then add the rest of the flour, adding in increments.

Step four: Turn dough onto a floured surface; Knead by folding dough in half and away with heel of your hand. Rotate and repeat until blended well. I gave my son a small amount of dough to knead himself. He seemed to really enjoy the sensory aspect of this step.

Step five: Place dough in oiled bowl. Flip over so that entire surface of dough gets coated. Cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for an hour until it doubles in size.

Step Six: Knead again to get out air bubbles.

Step Seven: Cut dough with knife and create different shapes for the bunny's body. I pinched the dough best I could to connect the pieces. As you assemble bunny, place on a baking tray lined with oiled parchment paper.

Step Eight: Decorate Bunny's body with dried fruit. We used a raspberry for nose, dried cherries flattened and cut in half for whiskers and claws, and dried blueberries for eyes and belly button.

Step Nine: Cover Bunny with plastic wrap and let sit again for 30 min. Preheat oven (to 400 degrees) as the time approaches 30 min.

Step Ten: Brush egg wash over bunnies body (one egg + 1 Tbsp. water, whisked).

Step Eleven: Bake for 25 minutes at 400 degrees F.

Step Twelve: Serve warm, or seal tightly with plastic to save for later.

Despite some minor cosmetic imperfections, I think our bunny turned pretty cute. AND not only that it tasted delicious as well! We coated our pieces with softened butter while it was still warm! Mmmm, mmmm, good! :)

Here are some more "bunny breads" that I found on the internet. I googled it, out of curiosity. They were pretty amazing. I found this Bunny Bread here, in which a hole is made in the belly and filled it with dip. Pretty clever and I think a perfect addition to an Easter Potluck! I also found this one here that I thought was so artistically crafted. I would love to try sculpt the bread in the same manner next time. It's such a charming bunny!

If you liked this post and you want to stay informed of more kid activity ideas I post or find around the blogosphere, remember to "like" me on my Facebook Page! Thank you! Have a wonderful day!
Thanks for visiting!

Bunny pictures from hand stamp

I did this fun bunny craft with the kids at the preschool last week in preparation for Easter. Every single one is just sooo adorable in my opinion that it was next to impossible to leave any out! Check out their individual pictures below!

What did you think? Pretty sweet! Right? I love that each of these bunny pictures truly reflected the kids who made them — unique and beautiful, just like they are.

I credit my son with this craft, as it was he who looked up at his snowman craft on the refrigerator, and said, "I want to make an Easter bunny craft like that, but instead of the snow, we should make grass, and instead of the snowman, a bunny." I was so excited and impressed. Ever since we have started doing craft projects on a more regular basis, I've noticed Bode start thinking about, and coming up with activities and crafts for us to do.  I LOVE when I witness his mind being creative like this! AND I am a HUGE advocate of following my child's lead. There is no positive reinforcement like that of than validating another person's idea, supporting it and seeing it through to fruition.

I applied the same principles to the bunny picture as I did to the snowman picture (torn ground & circle shapes). And with the picture that I did at home with my son, we also used a hole punch to punch out colored paper to represent falling blossoms.
Here is the step by step tutorial:

Materials used:

• half sheet of construction paper in a light color. I had the kids choose either pink, yellow, or light blue to represent the pastel colors of Easter
• Circles cut out of white paper; 2 circles each in the following diameters: 1.25" (for head), 1.75" (for body)
• green construction paper for the grass
• white tempera paint
• paint brush
• scissors
• Glue stick
• marker to draw face
• hole punch (optional)

Step one: Paint middle finger, pointer finger and thumb white.

Step Two: Press hand down on OPPOSITE side of background paper! (if you painted the left hand, press it down on the right hand side! And/or vice versa!)

One set of bunny ears and tail done!

Step Three: Paint the other hand and press it down on the opposite side as well.

Step four: Position and glue down circles for head and body

Step Five: Do the same for the other bunny

Step Six: Have child rip and glue on green construction paper at bottom of the page for grass. Position it so it looks like the bunnies are sitting in the grass.

Step Seven: Turn over paper and cut off excess green paper if there is any.

Step Eight: Have child draw on faces! This is the step where the project was complete at the preschool. I did a few more steps with my son when we did the project at home though. See below.

Step Nine: Have child punch out paper in flower blossom colors. We were going for cherry blossoms so we used pink.

Step Ten: Glue down colored dots.

Instead of the snow falling from the sky as we did in the Snowman project, I thought it would be cute to have the cherry blossoms falling down instead, to represent Spring. My son refused to have them be "cherry blossoms" and insisted that they must be cherries. And so he drew cherry stems :)
If you liked this post and you want to stay informed of more kid activity ideas I post or find around the blogosphere, remember to "like" me on my Facebook Page! Thank you! Have a wonderful day!

Happy crafting! 

Handprint lambs with packing peanuts

Knowing that Easter is right around the corner, I decided to get festive and have my son make a little "Easter" art to hang around the house. I had seen the cute little lamb crafts circulating around the internet with a child's handprint and cotton balls (Check it out here). I've also seen some pretty amazing ones around made with other common household materials, like hole reinforcers (check it out here) and then most recently found lambs made with cotton rounds (check it out here). Last week, I scored a bag full of packing peanuts from MECCA, our local store that saves materials from the landfill, puts them back into circulation and into the hands of crafters/teachers like me (who are working on a shoestring budget). I thought that we ought to try using these peanuts for the lamb's coat, because, after all, what could beat recycled material and free?

First I painted my son's hand and pressed it down on a piece of paper.

My son then glued down the packing peanuts onto the "body" of the sheep.

He then glued down a googly eye. We got these unique-looking googly eyes from Discount School Supply.

He then drew on ears and a tail with marker.

The final product. A pretty cute little lambie I think!

He also made a rainbow sheep for no other reason than just because we found these colorful packing peanuts in the bag. He, of course being the awesomely creative kid he is, couldn't resist using them; and really who could blame him? I love the way it turned out. I like to think of it as not exactly the "black sheep" of the family but the "Rastafarian hippie sheep".

If you liked this post and you want to stay informed of more kid activity ideas I post or find around the blogosphere, remember to "like" me on my Facebook Page! Thank you! Have a wonderful day!
Have a good weekend!

Make an Easter Bunny Card from child's hand tracing

Hand-drawn bunny face graces front of card

When the card is opened, the card reads "SOME BUNNY LOVES YOU!" How sweet is that?!

SOOOO, I was just informed that Easter is just around the corner! WOW! April 8th this year...Made me feel that I had to get on it! Good thing I had something already up my sleeve — an inadvertent craft I kind of stumbled upon weeks ago.

At the preschool one day actually last month, some of the kids were stamping away, exploring and discovering the ever-changing rubber stamp collection we have there.  I happened to look over at one of the children stamping and saw on his paper a cute little bunny picture and the words  "Some Bunny loves you". In a flash this bunny card craft came to me.

Materials:

• Construction paper in a light color
• pencil
• Googly eyes
• Markers
• Scissors 
• Glue

1. I traced the boy's left hand with a pencil (back of hand resting on page, palm facing ceiling) as he formed a peace sign (or "bunny ears"). Note The tracing was done on the right side of the construction paper so that I was able to fold paper as described in next step.
2. I then folded the paper like a card (keeping the outline of hand on the "front of the card"). I folded the paper so that the top left edge of his pointer finger and the left edge of his hand was represented by the fold. 
3. Then I cut the shape out through both layers of paper (cutting slightly inside hand tracing mark so the pencil marks can't be seen in final product). I had the boy glue googly eyes and draw a face on the front with markers
4. In the inside I had him stamp the bunny and sentiment. Because I realize that most people don't have this specific stamp, you could instead save the below image to your computer — control click (MAC) or right click (Windows) — reduce the size so it is about 1.5 inches across & print out. Then cut it out, and  glue to inside of card.
5. Voila! All done!

I thought to myself that I would have to remember this simple but precious craft come Easter time! It is sure to warm any recipient's heart :)

If you liked this post and you want to stay informed of more kid activity ideas I post or find around the blogosphere, remember to "like" me on my Facebook Page! Thank you! Have a wonderful day!