Don’t Play with Your Food
“Don’t Play with Your Food!” How many times did you hear that as a kid? The truth is, playing with their food is good for babies and young children and a natural thing to do. Children learn with their senses: sight, touch, smell, sound and taste. What could be better to learn with than food!
OK, I know, meals should be nice, quiet family affairs, where everyone comes together and talks about their day and learns new things and eats wonderfully prepared dishes. Says who? Miss Manners?
Mealtime, like everything else in your house should be on your terms. We do formal, sit-down family meals – sometimes – most of the time actually, but we also like to shake it up and have some fun.
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In this post, I have gathered a number of mealtime activities my family has tried and a few new ones we have found online and are itching to try.
Crazy Spaghetti Night
Have you ever tried eating spaghetti without a fork? How about with a whisk? A spatula? A soup ladle? It is not always easy, but it is a lot of messy fun!
Crazy spaghetti night is a semi-regular occurrence at our house. When the girls were growing up, they requested it quite often and whenever they had friends over for supper, it was always on the menu!
Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for this wonderful mealtime silliness. If you have read other posts on this site you may remember me mentioning (a few times, probably) that I grew up with parents and siblings that were youth group, Girl Guide and Scout leaders. Crazy spaghetti night was first introduced to my family at Girl Guide camp – every year campers would look forward to the one night they could be totally silly (and messy) at supper. Somehow I think I almost always ended up on the clean-up or dishes crew on those nights. How did that happen?
How to Host a Crazy Spaghetti Night
Hosting Crazy Spaghetti Night is simple. Make a large batch of your favourite spaghetti recipe and then hide the forks. Gather together a variety of large utensils from your kitchen drawers: tongs, spatulas, whisks, beaters, chop sticks, large spoons, ladles, etc. (Whatever you have on hand – just make sure there is nothing with sharp or pointy parts that might hurt). Make sure you have enough items for all your dinner guest – with a few extras… Place them all in a bag and once everyone is seated around the table have them close their eyes and pick something blindly out of the bag. Good Luck!
We do have one rule – try with what you have chosen, but if you are really having trouble you can take a second pick of what is left in the bag. If someone gets really stressed or can not seem to get any spaghetti into their mouth, we do have regular forks on-hand but, I don’t remember this ever happening.
Encourage all the adults in your group to participate – they may hold back at first but, everyone who has tried it here has ended up laughing and enjoyed letting go!
Crazy spaghetti night is also good when camping, you are eating outside anyway – not as much cleanup and maybe you can go swimming afterwards???
I’m not sure what you learn from Crazy Spaghetti Night, except maybe perseverance, but it sure is fun – and we all need a little fun in our lives!
NOTE: You may want to wear old clothes!
Edible Science Experiments
Do you have a science kid? Always exploring and wanting to learn new things. Combine to things they like – science and food. Check out the links below for a multitude of science experiments using food – most are even edible.
Easy Edible Science by “Parties with a Cause“
100 Amazing Food Experiments by “1 2 3 Homeschool 4 ME“
20 Ways to Explore Science with Food by “Kids Activities Blog“
Edible Painting
Kids will finger paint with just about any food – as long as it can be smooshed or spread they are good to go. So why not embrace it like Nicolle from “Tales of a Messy Mom”, you can find here edible paint recipe below.
Edible Paint from “Tales of a Messy Mom”
Sand-Witches
My mother had 6 children over 8 years, I’m not sure how she kept sane but doing little things to keep our attention so that she could concentrate on others things was always a help and she had no shortage of ideas. For example: simple peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch, not at our house… Instead of taking time to make us all sandwiches, mom would put out a jar of peanut butter and give us each a piece of bread on a plate and a dull knife.
We had competitions on who could make the cutest or most gruesome sand-Witch. We had fun, increased our art skills and creativity and mom had a few extra minutes to relax or get something else done. Thanks, Mom!
Edible Play Dough
Everyone loves playing with dough. Rolling it out, cutting out shapes, molding it then squishing it up again. For young children, these simple play movements are not only fun but help them develop their fine motor and artistic skills as well as hone their senses: touch, smell, sight and taste. Click on the links below to access a variety of edible play dough recipes that will allow and encourage your children to Play with Their Food.
Make sure hands and surfaces are nice and clean and have fun.
Frosting Play Dough by “One Little Project”
Peanut Butter Play Dough by “ConservaMome”
Pudding Play Dough by “Simply Being Mommy”
Marshmallow Play Dough by “One Little Project”
Tangram-wich
Have you ever attended a “lunch N’ Learn” Session at work? Create one for your kids with Tangram-wiches!
Did you play with Tangrams when you were a child? Could you re-make the square? For a little lunch fun, instead of cutting your kids sandwiches in half, cut them in the 7 tangram pieces. One more way to learn and play with your food!
Tangrams, and other blocks, help build spatial relationships and problem-solving skills. they also teach children about geometric shapes and can help to increase their mathematical vocabulary.
Why stop at making a tangram square – try other shapes. You can find many printable tangram shape cards, here thanks to: filefolderfun.com
Eating Dirt and Worms
On a cold wintery, or wet rainy day, you may not want to get out and dig in the dirt but you can still have some sweet fun learning about worms and their habitat. Make some dirt cups and read a book or two about worms.
Mix up some chocolate pudding, sprinkle on some Oreo cookie crumbs and top with gummy worms or place the ingredients and a cake pan on the table and see how your kids create a worm habitat.
Check out these and other worm books on Amazon.ca
Cookie Checkers
Learning to play a new game – like checkers is always fun and skill building – especially when you play with cookies!
How do you entertain your children at meals – do you let or encourage them to “Play with Your Food”!
Check out some of our other Games, Songs and Fun! posts below:
- How to Host an Awesome “Dragon Masters” Birthday Party
Dragon Masters books (by Tracey West) are all the rage. Surprise your little reader with an awesome Dragon Masters Birthday (or other) Party! - Why kids Should Hear, “Play with Your Food” – Recipes for Learning and Fun!
“Don’t Play with Your Food!” How many times did you hear that as a kid? The truth is, playing with their food is good for babies and young children and a natural thing to do! - Sing & Play – Road-Trip Cartoons!
Songs and games to sing and play to pass the time on long car rides. Road trips are fun, but can get long for young ones and grown-ups, too!
