Play With Your Food!

March 23, 2020 /

Looking for a way to keep your kids busy, safe but entertained while you work or get something done? Extend snack time with a bit of fun – and play with your food! When they are done playing – eat your snack! Just make sure everyone has their own supply so theres no fighting over who gets to eat it (or germ spreading from kid to kid).

All of these are super easy to set up – get in some playtime and continue the busy time by filling our bellies. Plus offer some great opportunities for picky eaters to gain exposure to new and different foods!

“Candy” Necklaces

Instead of outright serving cheerios for snack let your kids string up their own candy necklace. We used the strings from our lacing game but any piece of yarn or string will work! This is a great way to work on those fine motor skills at home and the kids will have a blast making and then eating their necklace. We chose to take ours off the string to eat, but older kids might enjoy the wearable snack!

Towers of Fun

Softer foods like marshmallows, raisins, or cranberries work great for building toothpick structures! Feel free to give suggestions such as building a certain shape, bridge, or tower or just let the kids free-play with it and see what they come up with using their imaginations. Continue to experiment with what fruits/foods work to build towers and which ones don’t! Expose them to a variety of foods as they build and see what they pull apart and eat at the end!

Construction Site

My son actually gave me this idea when he told me he didn’t like it when the snow plows take all the snow away. When I asked what they should work on instead he said crackers! So I guess that was our cue to play! I set each kiddo up with their own tray of crackers and a few of our favorite trucks – tractors, wagons etc. and let them create their own little worksite moving crackers around! They had lots of fun “loading” and “unloading” trucks and bringing crackers over to their towers.

If you’re ready to mix it up or serve something else pretty much anything solid could work for this one – blueberry “rocks”, peas, yogurt bites, raisins, cereal, cheese cubes etc. Any food that can sustain a little bit of play! Just make sure you give the toys a quick wash or wipe down before/after – which could be a whole other activity for the kids by itself. (Check out the water play/washing station activity in our list of no shopping needed activities).

Stone Soup
Activities You Already Have At Home

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