Making and Playing with Our Food

It's "Wheat Day" as we study food produced on farms this week. We read The Little Red Hen (A First Little Golden Book) and played in flour, but the best part was when all three of us (mom, dad, and Sweet Pea) got into the kitchen to cook together!

Mother Goose Time included this wonderful "recipe card".  All I needed was dough (you could totally use a roll of cookie dough here) which I surprisingly had in the fridge. The recipe card suggested the kids make letters with the dough.  My girl is 2 and 3 months and she can't do that just yet so I improvised.  I grabbed the letter cookie cutters which come in our monthly box from Mother Goose Time, and let her make dough letters using those! 

   

I needed to cook something for dinner to accompany the bread letters... taco soup! Bunch of cans, seasoning, Hidden Valley ranch packet and 1 lb of ground beef and you're ready to go. Now we just need the bread! Here comes Sweet Pea to the rescue!

I put the dough on a plastic mat, and placed it on her work table with the cookie cutters and she went to town.  She said the sounds of her letters as she cut them out.  I am much more concerned about her knowing the sounds of the letters rather than the name right now.

Once she stamped a few, I would remove the letters and place them on a cookie sheet. I had to remind her to press really hard. Here she is with her strength face. :)

She was proud of her work and wanted to watch them cook in the oven.  It took less time than the instructions said.  I think the directions said to cook for 10 minutes, but because these were all cut ups and not one giant sheet, they only took 5 minutes!  Trust your noses, friends!

Before and After baking:

   

Well Sweet Pea wasn't going to eat Taco Soup (I made it a little too spicy), so I made her a grilled cheese instead and put a few of her letters in her bowl.  She would pick them up and say the sound of each one, and Jason and I would spell things out playing with our food at the dinner table :) 

       

Playing with your food at the dinner table doesn't happen all the time, but tonight was perfect for it!

Happy Cooking with your Littles!