Bunny Pasta Books

Make your own Bunny Pasta Book

Easter is almost here so bunnies seem to be everywhere!  I picked up a couple of boxes of Annies HomeGrown Bunny Pasta with the intentions of eating the cheesy morsels, not playing with them, but you never know when inspiration will strike.

What you need:

Annie's Homegrown Bunny Pasta

Plastic sandwich bags

Food coloring

Vinegar

Paper (white and/or colored)

Pencils, markers, crayons

Dyeing the pasta

We used four colors (purple, pink, yellow and blue) so we divided one box of pasta into 4 plastic baggies.  I added about 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar to the bag and a drop or two of food coloring.  The kids loved shaking the bag around to get the dye onto all the little bunnies.  After you've done this with all the pasta set it out to dry on paper towels.  After it dried I sorted each color into 4 separate bowls.

Writing our book

I took three 8.5 by 11in sheets of white cardstock and cut them in half.  I gave my four year old a little inspiration by starting the story, "once upon a time there were 4 bunnies..."  I wrote in the numbers 1-4 so she could glue the bunnies down next to them.  Then we just continued on with the story.  She added some, I added some.  We kept it pretty simple.  This part is truly limitless.  You could make a longer story, add other fun shaped pasta or add some printed clip art or draw your own pictures in.  I was thinking you could even print pictures of your family members and include them in the story too.   Lastly, if you have a word of the day, like we do you could incorporate that into your story.  Our word of the day was devour.

Finishing the book

I finished off the book by drawing some clouds, flowers, and trees so that the kids could color them in.  If your child is older they could do this themselves of course.  To bind the book I simply punched a hole in the upper left hand corner so the pages could be rotated upward, thus eliminating the turning action so no bunny would come unglued.

What this teaches

Creativity, first and foremost!  Not only are you using something in an unconventional way (the bunny pasta) but you are also encouraging their imaginations by coming up with their own story.  I had a little bit of math in our story, but you could definitely add more.  If you use different colors like we did you could also incorporate patterns.  If you are teaching your child another language try doing the same book in the 2nd language.  There's lots to learn, if only you look, that's what I'm learning anyway :)