To bury one's face in one's hands
My daughter loves playing hiding something, and I´m looking for some other ways to enrich her vocabulary by using other verbs different from “to hide”.
There is a phrase “to bury one's face in one's hands”. Can we use the same structure with the verb “to bury” to refer to the process of hiding something? E.g., can I say the following when playing with a child:
1) Please bury your ears in your hands (i.e. “put your hands onto your ears to hide them”).
2) Please bury this toy in your hands (i.e. to “cover” the toy with one´s hands to hide it).
3) Let´s bury this toy in the book (meaning “to put the book on top of the toy to hide it”).

Thank you!

Question

To bury one's face in one's hands
My daughter loves playing hiding something, and I´m looking for some other ways to enrich her vocabulary by using other verbs different from “to hide”.
There is a phrase “to bury one's face in one's hands”. Can we use the same structure with the verb “to bury” to refer to the process of hiding something? E.g., can I say the following when playing with a child:
1)	Please bury your ears in your hands (i.e. “put your hands onto your ears to hide them”).
2)	Please bury this toy in your hands (i.e. to “cover” the toy with one´s hands to hide it).
3)	Let´s bury this toy in the book (meaning “to put the book on top of the toy to hide it”).

Thank you!

Answer

No, English speakers do not use "bury" in those cases. I would say "Please cover your ears with your hands," "Please put this toy in your hands," "Let's cover this toy with the book." The reason I use "cover" and "with" instead of "bury" and "in" is because "bury" is only used for when an object is covered in something like dirt or covered by the ground, for example, I would say "Please bury the bone in the ground" to a dog, because "bury" is usually only used when something is underground and permanently covered by dirt or sand.

Answer

No, we wouldn't say these things. The expression only really works with 'face.' By the way this expression has a pretty specific meaning, you would only use it if someone was extremely upset about something, it's not a neutral way to describe someone covering their face with their hands.

Put your hands over your ears. Cover your ears with your hands.
Cover the toy with your hands.

The third sentence could actually work but it doesn't mean what you intend it to. If you bury the toy in the book, the toy goes inside the pages of the book, not underneath it. So it would have to be a very small and particular type of toy for the sentence to make any sense.

Otherwise:

Let's put the toy under the book.

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