Play Cooking

I set this invitation up on a Friday night with the idea that Katie could play with this on Saturday morning while Jim was there and I got to sleep in.  The ingredients here are real spices and foods and lets kids practice "cooking" with something more interesting than just plastic foods in the play kitchen.

Side note: Since this uses spices, it could get very expensive.  I tried to minimize that by using old spices that I rarely use (ground mustard comes to mind, I've had the same bottle for about 15 years...), spices that are less expensive because they come in larger quantities (I get large bottles of cinnamon for example), and using other foods that are pretty cheap like quick oats.  Katie loved the different smells and textures of the ingredients.

The invitation

Starting to explore

Time for a bigger container!

Can I have more ingredients Mom?

How about some more? (When she wanted more ingredients, I used this as an opportunity to use up the last little bit of some different things that were taking up fridge space like the barbecue sauce bottles in this picture.) 

As an added bonus, I had given her cider vinegar as an ingredient and Jim offered her baking soda so her concoction bubbled right after she also added hot sauce to the mix.

Chef Katie!

Another good way to minimize the cost of this activity would be to use Dollar Store spices.  Katie LOVED this.  She spent a good hour on this activity and would have kept going if I had heeded her call for more ingredients.  I finally drew the line and she decided to finish.  Then she was too tired to help clean up but, after a short break, was able to help. :)