Any good “mommy” blog should share crafts, recipes and activities. I’ve never been good at that kind of stuff (outside of the Advent project), but this one came out well.
For the record, the idea is not mine. J It came out of Alex’s “High Fives” magazine (offshoot of Highlights), which his Grandma Basi gave him for Christmas. The instructions call for frozen bread dough, but we went one better and made our own dough. It’s very simple: Roll lots of dough balls in various sizes to make the body, head, ears, nose, arms and legs. The eyes are raisins. Assemble the bears and let them rise (so the balls stick together), and then bake at 350 for 16-18 minutes.
We served them, smeared with butter and honey, to the younger siblings of one of my students, who come to play with Alex while their older sister takes flute lessons. They went over really well.
Kathleen M. Basi 
What Fun! William gets High Five too and wanted to make them, but we haven’t yet. This inspires me to get motivated!
My grandma used to make these with us when we were kids! She also does a turtle version instead of bears.
Turtles, that’s a good idea! We used to make turtle pancakes. Anybody do that? Christian’s mom does snowman pancakes with powdered sugar, and Mickey Mouse. Alex loves that. What other good ideas can we come up with to make easy things special?
Hmmm… A few ideas from my days as a preschool teacher:
1) Egg carton picnics — gather tasty little snacks (crackers, berries, grapes, cheese cubes, pepperoni, etc.) and place them in the little compartments. Perfect for taking outside on an adventure.
2) Hidden treasure muffins — muffins with a surprise in the center (we used M&Ms, but I’m sure you could use something else). Bake them up. Hide them. Draw a treasure map to their secret location (use concepts like “over the couch,” “under the table,” etc.
I’m sure there are more…
Wow, Niki, those are good. 🙂