A Basket Full of Bunnies – Make it a Max and Ruby Easter

Looking for the perfect presents for the Easter Bunny to bring your young child this year?  Look no further than the tales of Max and Ruby.   These lovable bunnies are the perfect addition to any child’s collection and are sure to bring more than just fun and entertainment to your child’s life.  Centering on the relationship between two siblings, the Max and Ruby toys, books, and television show provide opportunities for learning and growth with every experience.

All About Max and Ruby

The stories found in the books and on the Nick Jr. television show feature Max, his sister Ruby, and their friends and family.  Max, who is three years old, is trying to learn to do things for himself.  He is very determined and offers children of a similar age an excellent role model for overcoming challenges.   Ruby, who is seven, is supportive of Max and tries to help him learn something new in each story.  The children are fortunate to have a wonderful, funny grandmother who lives in the house next door.  She offers guidance and support through all the children’s antics and models a positive relationship between young children and older family members.

Educational Messages

Each Max and Ruby story offers up a key message that is meaningful to children in this age group.  Some stories feature Max and Ruby playing together or interacting in positive, supportive ways.  Other stories focus on modeling respectful behavior by showing the bunnies being respectful to each other, to their grandmother, to their toys and their friends.  Often, the message of the story will be brought about through some conflict or issue that Max, Ruby and the other characters need to resolve.  As the bunnies overcome each challenge, learn each lesson and resolve each conflict, your child will benefit from the positive messages the stories provide.

Bringing the Books Home

Read one of the books together and then use the message in the story to spark discussion and interactions with your own children on the same or similar topics.  Use Max and Ruby plush dolls to act out stories from the books with your children to help make the message of the book stick.  If you are having trouble with sibling arguments or rivalry, use a Max and Ruby game or book to bring up the topic and offer your children role models on working and playing together.

There are also Max and Ruby books that take on specific issues in a fun and interesting way.  In Max Cleans Up, Ruby tries to help Max learn to clean his own room.  But Max doesn’t

want to throw his things away, even the clump of dirt from his floor.  Instead, he stuffs them all in his pocket and learns his lesson later in the story.  In Goodnight Max, Ruby helps Max through a series of mishaps, trying to get him to bed.

Bunny Filled Basket

Whether your children already love Max and Ruby or if you are bringing these loveable bunnies into your child’s life for the first time, Easter and bunnies are a perfect fit.  From a Max and Ruby backpack full of books to a basket full of games and toys you can use to re-create their many adventures, you are sure to find Max and Ruby merchandise that will bring a bounce to your child’s step this Easter.

Max and Ruby Make Easter “Egg- traordinary!”

Three year old Natane was ambitiously, precociously, drawing portraits of Mom, Dad, and the Power Puff Girls. They all had delicious, delightful looking bunny ears sticking straight up from their full moon shaped heads. This wasn’t even Easter time! Rabbits, bunnies, and Max & Ruby, or Ruby and Max if you prefer that girls go first as their theme song allows, make any kid feel “hoppy” all year long! Kids know bunny ears are soft, cuddly, great to grab and hang on to, and really easy to draw.

Honey and Funny Bunny Art and Games
Nick Jr. Max and Ruby are the best inspirations at Easter time for your own budding portrait artists. Take a quickie photo of their faces, print it out for kids to cut out and paste on another paper. Have available some downloadable Max and Ruby coloring pages, to color and cut out the famous brother and sister pair to add to their artwork page. Then have your little bunny artists draw the rest of themselves, and a background scene to set off their bunny family picture.

For kids a bit older, set up your Max and Ruby plush dolls or Beanie babies as terrific posing models, and have the kids copy their pose. You can play them the famous episode where Ruby has Max posing while she and Louise paint a portrait. Ruby demonstrates a really easy way to do that famous bunny face.

Max and Ruby Plush Doll Set

If your own sweet bunnies don’t already have the Max and Ruby dolls to carry around, they are easily available online and are must haves for little honey bunnies who all adore the now famous Nick Jr. Max and Ruby program. Catch up with the Easter episodes or any of the Max and Ruby videos, available online, because they all offer very special inspiration that is bound to bring about some bunny scout cooperation and achievements like Ruby, and just the right amount of passionate pursuits, like Max.

Bunnies, Bags and Begin
The Nick Jr. Easter Max & Ruby episodes do have some wonderful lessons, as well as being great accompaniments for Easter time or anytime activities and parties. The cool thing is you can get special Max and Ruby

Max and Ruby Totes

supplies easily available online, for setting your atmosphere, if you wish.

For the young age set, just like Max and Ruby themselves, there are so many ways to get busy. Max and Ruby dress up games, toys, coloring and activities, are chock full of ideas to go a little hopping mad! So pack up your toddler’s Max and Ruby Lunch Bag. Fill your little tike’s Max and Ruby Backpack with those favorite things. You can make your own match and memory game with what goes into the backpack, and if you need reminding about what Max loves, check out the Max’s Favorite Things Board Book, available online. For your Ruby who is full of direction and instructions, let her challenge her friends to play the Max and Ruby Match It Memory game, available online. Another fun challenge for a preschooler’s bunny fun is the 24 piece Max and Ruby puzzles.

“Egg citing” Hunt
Like Ruby says while painting her eggs in the Easter Nick Jr. Max and Ruby episode, (which you can always get online for your use anytime), “I wish we could do it all year and not just for Easter.” Kids might be like Ruby, delighting in painting eggs, proudly carrying a filled basket, finding all those colorful eggs,. Or, they might be like Max, filling a basket with bugs, frogs, and half eaten Easter candies. Both ways are just tops. Baskets are always available on the cheap, or get Max and Ruby tote bags, available online, and 1, 2, or 20 kids will have a ball filling it before even starting an egg hunt game. Make it a challenge with a special golden egg and an “egg-stra” special prize for the one who finds it!

Kids may enjoy taking turns playing the Easter Bunny and hiding eggs or other toys within a certain area. If you have a big back yard, how about getting a bunch of hay and putting a new spin on finding the needle in the haystack, by burying Max & Ruby windup toys and eggs within.

Just like Ruby’s exhilaration in decorating her eggs, kids can do their plastic ones with glue on macaroni, spangles, beads, ribbons and anything else around to make them beautiful. Or, draw and glue on parts for silly and zany faces like Humpty Dumpty.

Special Eggs
Here’s an activity to fit right in with Max & Ruby games just for Easter time. Make large white paper eggs, and cut in half in a zig zag crack pattern. Or, you can trace and have the kids cut it themselves. Punch paper fasteners to one side so that the egg can open and close. Have kids draw and color an animal to “hatch” from their egg. Cut it out and glue it to the back of the bottom shell. Give each child a chance to tell a story about their creature in their egg. Prizes for these imagination stories can be little Max and Ruby toys such as wind ups, or little dolls that look like Ruby’s Curly Shirley.

Another imagination puzzler just in time for Easter fun with Ruby and Max games is to ask the famous question accompanied with a board illustration: What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Five year old Sean wanted to earn merit badges like Ruby’s Bunny Scout badges, so here’s an opportunity to give out special badges for “Egg-cellent Thinking.”

There are plenty of adorable Max and Ruby books with the famous Easter stories in them to have on hand, or you might also like Rechenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco with gorgeous Ukranian style painted eggs to “ooh and ahh” over.

What’s Fair in a Game?
Easter time is the serious time about chocolate and bunnies. Max will tell you the most simple and true words about chocolate is “I love you”. If you don’t remember this, check out the Easter episode with the chocolate chicken. Remember that Max and Ruby game rules are very different! On getting the chocolate chicken with Ruby’s method, the reward is at the end but you enjoy the hunt and the discovery. On the other hand, Max’s method is simply seizing the moment and the object of chocolate desire and partaking of its tasty wonders immediately. Truly, when any child tells you “I love you” that does deserve a tasty reward!

Wormy and Fluffy Cakes
Reward kids with some treats besides peeps and eggs and jelly beans. You can do Max and Ruby’s favorite cakes like the earthworm cake, the angel food surprise cake with raspberry fluff icing, or the red hot marshmallow cakes. The recipes and pictures to guide are all online. But your kids will show you their favorite cakes just from the wide variety of Max and Ruby coloring pictures, also easily downloadable online. These cakes in Max and Ruby style are just what the novice needs for no worries about lumps and drips and cakes that lean. Just have enough gummy worms to decorate for Max lovers, and pink marshmallow fluff for the Ruby lovers. Online recipes have some simple ideas for making a worm cake. Just crumble chocolate pie crust with chocolate pudding and add your gummy worms. Serve it in a flowerpot with some overhanging worms for the effects that Max lovers will thrill at.

The Hat Trick Easter Bonnet
Three year old Sammy spots a cloth bucket and promptly dons it on his head. Everything is a hat, or can be one. A hat can be simple, like something Max would wear, or elegantly decorated like Ruby’s hats. Some of Nick Jr.’s Max and Ruby coloring pages show all kinds of hats. However, a little Max may not want to win a hat competition for the Bunny Scouts, and is more interested in helping his own pet frog do tricks, just like the Max and Ruby episode. And speaking of animal tricks, try this. Put a bunch of little plastic animals in a paper bag, have a child reach in and pull one out. He or she then has to do a trick which that bug or animal might do. Give prizes for each budding pantomime.

Following this raucous bit of activity, settle down to color, cut and paste the prettiest or the funniest hat of all. Have some precut mats to frame their coloring pages of awesome hat designs.

Easter and Everyday Parades
Dressing up is always traditional for an Easter parade, and anytime is good for tots and preschoolers too. Have a bag of costumes for kids to do their own Easter time Max and Ruby dress up parade. Make a dress up game by having partners dress each other as Max or Ruby. And most importantly, don’t forget about Max and Ruby’s toys. Yes, toys are a necessary part of the parade. Remember that Max and Ruby episode where Ruby colored eggs, while Max instead of putting them in a basket, gave an egg to each of his toys? Kids even school aged, love to insure that every doll, every truck, every toy has their equal portion of whatever it is. Little Jessica, with her 25 Barbie dolls, made sure each Barbie had her own Pet Shop for her Easter Pet Parade Party! Making your costume and toy parade all set to music is an activity bound to please. The toys, Max and Ruby style, can be around as an obstacle course, but still part of the parade route.

Too Many Toys?
Boys like Max always need enough toys, because sharing can sometimes be a problem when a friend comes along to proclaim some as “mine”. And just how many toys does a toddler need in bed? Like Max who discovered that sometimes a red rubber elephant isn’t enough, there’s always room for more Max and Ruby toys. Pile a few toys under a blanket for a fun guessing game of how many are there.

Max’s frogs which you can get a lot of, can be hidden around for a fun search and rescue game. Find them and bring them to a little pail of pond water with some paper lily pads.

Max and Ruby Dress Up
From ages 3-6, the most favorite online activity, no matter how many times it’s done, is the Max and Ruby dress up game. Kids love to see bare-naked Max and help find his clothes, unfortunately dropped on the floor, their style! But you don’t have to have the computer available for your Easter party fun, because Nick Jr. Max and Ruby dress up dolls for printing out are all available. Kids never tire of cutting and pasting their choices. And, even better, have them design their own wild outfit, and tell a little story about where Max or Ruby is going with that outfit. If you like to video, do a video recording of each child to show off their “fashionista” and adventurous selves.

Besides for coloring pages, there are many craft templates available online, with almost too many cute ones to choose from. Preschoolers would love to do the Bunny Egg Cartons for holding jelly beans, or Max’s famous jelly balls. It is easy to put together by gluing onto a cutout bunny head template some pompons and wiggly eyes, and cotton balls of course for ears.

A bit older and able kids would love do the awesome rabbit toilet paper rolls. They are just adorable with easy instructions with the online templates.

Templates for making paper rabbit ears to attach to a headband for all your bouncing bunnies is a fun way to start a party. And they will laugh to see one another with the ears doing a freeze dance, or bunny musical chairs.

An Easter Birthday or Party Party
Besides for being a honey bunny, funny bunny, snuggle bunny, or cuddle bunny, kids do have birthdays at Easter, and what a great time to have a Max and Ruby birthday party! All your necessary Max & Ruby party supplies and more are easily available online. Of course you can get their funny bunny images on everything, from edible cake decorations, or a rabbit specialty cake pan, balloons, invitations, party favors, and an awesome Max & Ruby piñata that many a parent has raved about.

There are some favorite Max and Ruby books online that teach preschoolers their important colors. Check them out. And if you have a porch and lots of newspapers, and just a couple of bunny lovers, do a color mixing lesson just like Ruby did when painting her model, Max. Put out blue, yellow, red and see how you make green and brown. If you’re adventurous, and outdoors, you might have some fun like Max did and “paint,” as Max quipped, with some ketchup, mustard and grape jelly!

Max and Ruby: Fun Toys and Adventures for Your Preschooler

Max and Ruby, the adventurous rabbits preschoolers adore, didn’t start out on the big screen. The pair originated in children’s books written by Rosemary Wells. However, the story captured the attention of television networks and debuted in 2001 with a pilot episode. Preschoolers loved the story of Max, a rambunctious 3-year rabbit, and his older sister Ruby, a 7-year old bunny. The characters won a permanent spot on NickJr, and filmed their fourth season in 2009.

During the story, older sister Ruby typically takes on a new activity, and she involves younger brother Max (whether he likes it or not). The show focuses on building relationships between siblings.

Max and Ruby Toys

Plush toys are a great way to encourage dramatic play. Check out the Max plush doll, which is fun for playtime (and soft and cuddly for nighttime). Do you have a preschooler who loves big sister Ruby (perhaps she’s a big sister herself?). Check out the Ruby doll. Preschoolers can take their Max Ruby characters on a fun imaginary adventure.

Another fun way to encourage learning through play is Max and Ruby Puzzles. The Max and Ruby 24 piece puzzle helps preschoolers create fun images such as Max and Ruby play soccer, exploring the park or playing with a train set. These fun puzzles develop problem solving and tactile skills.

Max and Ruby Books

Is your preschooler learning her shapes and colors? Make it fun with the Max and Ruby Shapes Sizes and Colors activity book. This activity book makes learning fun with pages and pages of Max and Ruby activities.

Has your little one mastered her colors and shapes? Dive into learning numbers with the Max and Ruby Numbers Pre-K activity book. Enjoy fun activities that help preschoolers master counting, matching and printing numbers 1-10 with their pals Max and Ruby.

Max Ruby DVDs

Does your toddler love to go to the fair? Take her on a fair adventure with the Max and Ruby Candy Apple DVD. This DVD includes six different episodes about going to the fair, finding the perfect pumpkin and having a puppet show. Encourage dramatic play by setting up a puppet show (just like Max and Ruby) or checking out local fairs in your area.

Refresh your seasonal DVD collection for next year with a couple Max and Ruby adventures. Check out Max and Ruby’s Christmas Tree or Max’s Christmas. These DVDs take preschoolers on fun holiday adventures decorating for the holidays and staying up late to catch a glimpse of Santa.

Watch Favorite Episodes Online

Did your preschooler miss his favorite episode of Max and Ruby? Check out Max and Ruby’s adventures on YouTube, such as Max’s Dragon Shirt Adventure. Then, after the show, break out your child’s plush dolls and encourage them to have an adventure of their own.

Visit our Max and Ruby Store here…