Playing with Your Food: Peanut Butter Playdough

"Don't play with your food!" I've said it dozens of times myself. Kids are imaginative. If a card board box can be a toy, how much more tempting is it to play with the multi-colored, multi-textured stuff we call food? Sometimes you've just got to give in, acknowledge that the kitchen floor will need mopped sooner rather than later, and let them go at it. There are some foods that make for better play than others. One simple thing we do is to put a few pounds of dry beans in a plastic container and let our preschooler use it to bury small toys, coins, etc. and dig them up. Henry calls these his "Treasure Beans."

Another idea is to make playdough out of peanut butter. If you make sure their hands are clean and the play surface is clean, they can make stuff and then eat it. Here is the simple recipe:

Peanut Butter Play Dough

• 12 ounces peanut butter (smooth)
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 - 1 cup nonfat dry milk

Mix together the peanut butter and honey and then stir in the dry milk until the mix is no longer sticky (more than 1 cup might be needed).

Any other creative "play with your food" ideas for kids? 

Comments

[Linda]

Another really fun project is to in secret; take vanila instant pudding and put small amounts into separate containers. color with food colorings and put the containers on the table for the child and show them how to finger paint. Don't tell them it's pudding. The object is to see how long it takes them to put their fingers in their mouth and figure out their paint is eatable.

We did this in a nursery school class many years ago. It was a blast. Some of the kids just WOULD NOT believe that the PAINT was good to eat.