Original Bread and the Sacrament activity

(This is an updated version of this activity, the old version which I did three years ago is at the end of this post, we made yeast bread, but it took too long to rise and too long to bake)

Learning and Living the Gospel #1 Explain how taking the sacrament helps you renew your baptismal covenant.  In a family home evening, teach others about things we can do to remain faithful. 

Bread Sculpture Recipe (yummy!)
2 cups warm water
2 packets yeast (I used SAF instant, my recipe doesn't specify)
5 cups flour (700g)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Dissolve the yeast into the warm water.  Stir in the other ingredients, about 20 strokes.  Set aside for 5 minutes.  Shape dough, if you don't know what to make, start with a lot of balls and snakes and take it from there.  Bake for 12 minute or until nicely browned.  Very large shapes may need 2-3 extra minutes and very small ones may need a minute less.  Use a pastry brush to brush "pizza oil" over the top when they come out of the oven.  This recipe was perfect for 10 girls.

Pizza Oil Recipe
4 TBS butter melted
1 TBS parmesan cheese
garlic salt to taste, I sprinkle it over the butter like I would over pasta or bread.
a sprinkle of parsley flakes ground up between fingers adds some nice color

Bread Sculpture Paint
1 egg white
food coloring

Add food coloring to the white of one egg in a small bowl, glaze bread before cooking.  Its fun to have several different colors to choose from.

I started the bread about 15 minutes before the girls were due to arrive.  We started with a prayer and then went straight into bread making.  I gave each girl a plate with dough and 1/2 TBS of flour to work into the dough if it was too sticky.  If their hands were getting sticky I just gave them another spoonful of flour until the dough was workable.  I told the girls not to add too much flour, just barely enough that their hands weren't sticking to the dough.  This worked out great and was very easy for the girls to do.

I had a greased cookie sheet in the center of the table and as they finished a sculpture they placed it on the tray.  When the first one was full I put it in to bake and then they filled up a second tray.  While they worked I asked them what bread had to do with church.  They all knew it was sacrament.  I saved the rest of the lesson for while the bread baked.  The pictures I have above are from when I did this with my kids, at our activity the girls wanted to paint their sculptures so they made an egg glaze with food coloring  and used a spoon to put it on (seriously!  One of the girls made it herself, I was impressed).

For the lesson (below) I had a few visual aides like my driver's license, a library book, a prescription, etc.  After the lesson and while the bread was still baking, we took turns hiding the visual aides and playing hide and seek/hot n' cold.  It was a simple, but the girls had fun with it.

I got a ton of compliments on the bread so I assume it tasted great.  The girls were all so impressed that it smelled like pizza.  We got the bread all cooked before our one hour activity was over and what was left of it got sent home with the girls on napkins.  This was a super easy activity.

Lesson:

What things you can renew, why do you renew them?

Library books (3 weeks)

Drivers license (5 years)

Prescription (after x amount of refills, one year for glasses)

Certification (CPR every 2 years, lifeguarding 1 to 3 years, nursing (2 years), refereeing license 1 year, teaching degree (3-7 years)

Renew energy (rest, fluids, Gatorade) Wind energy (pinwheel)

Temple recommend (2 years)

Baptismal Covenant (“often” once a week except stake and general conference)

Why do we renew our baptismal covenant so often? (remember him always, repentance & forgiveness)

What is our baptismal covenant? (obedience, take his name on us, mourn with those who mourn, comfort those who stand in need of comfort, stand as a witness at all times)

What is the Lord's part of the covenant? (his spirit to be with us, first resurrection, eternal life)

Another reason to renew our covenant weekly: repentance

  from ~Don R. ClarkeOctober 2012 General Conference

"Thirdly, during the sacrament we can feel forgiven of our sins. If we have spent time before sacrament meeting repenting of our sins, we can leave sacrament meeting feeling clean and pure. President Boyd K. Packer said: “The sacrament renews the process of forgiveness. Every Sunday when the sacrament is served, that is a ceremony to renew the process of forgiveness. … Every Sunday you cleanse yourself so that, in due time, when you die your spirit will be clean.”8 Partaking of the sacrament worthily can help us feel like the people of King Benjamin, who “were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience.”9

V. Partaking of the Sacrament Worthily Will Help Us Be Filled with the Holy Ghost

The fifth principle, partaking of the sacrament worthily, will help us be filled with the Holy Ghost. Upon instituting the sacrament during His visit to the Nephites, Jesus stated, “He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled.”11 They had been promised that if they hungered and thirsted after righteousness, they would be filled with the Holy Ghost. The sacramental prayer also promises that if we live up to our covenants, we will always have His Spirit to be with us.12

We will be blessed as we feel gratitude for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, renew our baptismal covenants, feel forgiveness, and receive inspiration from the Holy Ghost as we partake of the sacrament each week. It will always be a great sacrament meeting if the sacrament is the center of our worship. I express my gratitude for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know He lives. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

The plates the girls used to roll out their dough and you can also see the little bowls of "bread dough paint"

 The only picture I have of colored bread dough.  This girl just made a big ball of dough, most of the sculptures were a bit more detailed, but there is no wrong way!

Bears are easy to do: 1 big ball, two medium,  1 for snout, 1 for nose, 2 for eyes, and 2 for eyeballs.

Flowers are the easiest of all: six balls and a snake!

Sunshine: 1 snake and 7 small balls

Worm: very easy but a fun shape to eat

Heart: okay it doesn't look like a heart, but it was a heart with a snake to outline it 

Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Original Post

Purpose: To think about the significance of bread as a symbol of the Savior.

Lesson: Talk about how to plan a family home evening on the sacrament. Give the girl's a story they could share.

Now let's talk about bread, one of the emblems of the sacrament.

One reason bread is a good symbol of the sacrament is because people all over the world bake bread. Show pictures and discuss some different kinds of bread. There are a few cute children's books about baking bread you could read time permitting.

Then talk about how Jesus is the bread of life.

The day after Jesus fed the five thousand, a huge crowd of people came looking for him. However, he told them that he knew they hadn’t come to hear him because they believed, but rather they were interested in more free food. He taught them that they shouldn’t seek the things of this world that are temporary, but much more importantly, they should seek everlasting life. He told them he was the Bread of Life and that if they would come unto him they would never hunger. We know that bread nourishes us and gives our physical bodies life. The incredible difference with Jesus being the bread of life is that unlike food which we have to eat every day, his atonement is a one time event with the power to save us for ALL ETERNITY.
Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life. The bread of the sacrament symbolically represents Christ’s body.

Teach the girl's what Christ meant by hunger no more and remind them these are things we can think of during the sacrament when we take the bread.

Making Bread:
If doing this activity at the church I think making garlic toast or cinnamon toast would work best, then you are just reheating in the ovens.  I brought french bread samples and that is the one the girl's liked best, so I think buttering bread with homemade garlic butter would be short and sweet and there would be plenty of time for visiting with the girl's which is their favorite thing anyway.

While the bread is toasting or baking, you could sample two or three different kinds of bread.  Banana bread, monkey bread, corn bread muffins, bagels, pitas, etc).

If you do this activity in your home, you can roll out bread or roll dough. This is harder in a church kitchen. We actually made bread dough, but it didn't add much to the activity. I would just have the dough ready to go, you could use pillsbury dough crescent rolls for a faster simpler activity.  I told the girls they could do a loaf or another shape of dough. The girls all divided their dough into two or three balls, made logs and then twisted it to make a braided dough. They wanted lots of demos and were very picky about how their loaves looked. They spent over ten minutes rolling out the equivalent of two rolls worth of dough, so allow plenty of time. They seemed to really like shaping the dough. A few girls did more involved sculptures with their dough. I then let it rise and baked it after they left. I dropped the rolls off at their homes later that evening after is was done and cooled a little bit. This was easy in my small ward, but if your girls live too far away, you don't need to bake yeast bread, just sample some breads or do something quick like muffins. You could also have an extra long activity to allow time for baking.