Sensory “Cooking”

In case you wondered, I write these posts ahead and then schedule them to post on a certain day. Well, so this particular activity that I’m sharing today occurred the afternoon I wrote the “Real Life” post (which was actually posted the day it was written… I needed to get that out.) To say that I had a rough week this past week is putting it mildly. Hormones are a horrible thing… especially ones that haven’t had any additional estrogen since 2009 and are now getting a daily dose… So, basically, it was a week where I did very little new with Becca, and we did a lot of watching tv. A lot. We love Daniel Tiger, but seriously, how many times can I watch the episodes about Baby Margaret? Seriously? And Super Why. I love Super Why. I love how she has begun to notice rhyming words, loves to spell, and wants to read everything in sight… but I’m tired of Super Why. I’m tired of Little Einsteins. I’m just tired of kid tv in general. You know you need something new when you’re begging your child, “Can’t we watch Curious George today? We haven’t seen Curious George in a week!” Sigh. Time to unplug. But when you have no energy, looking at ideas from other people can just be depressing. And, when you need an activity that is fool proof, where are you going to find it when you have no energy and won’t look at ideas from other people?

Enter the pantry. Seriously – go walk into your pantries, ya’ll. You are guaranteed to find at least one thing that is WAY out of date that you would NEVER serve to your family that can be a ton of fun for your child!! Thank you, Stove Top stuffing and HEB for not having the regular box of Stove Top I needed whatever day that was last fall when I was hungry for chicken and stuffing and peas. So, I bought this canister of stuffing and then the rest of it got stuck back into the pantry to be discovered a year later. Not gonna cook it. But I was NOT going to throw it away. Just opening the lid made the kitchen smell like Thanksgiving. (I love sage, ya’ll. It’s why I love Thanksgiving so much…you can bet that on a much more creative day than this, I’ll be coming up with something yummy for a Thanksgiving sensory cooking activity…) So, I dumped it into a bowl, grabbed a couple of items to play in the bowl with, and a sensory cooking activity was born. She LOVED it. I even let her wear my apron (hers was upstairs in her play kitchen).

The invitation to play

She ended up transferring the “baby breads” back and forth between the bowl and the canister, using the various tools I gave her. The spoon was her favorite. (She loves using the little wooden spoons from The Pampered Chef – get yours here.) Her first response was “Oh my GOODness! So many breads in there!” Then she just kept looking at me, smiling, and saying, “I cooking breads! I cooking!” “I wearing Mommy’s apron!” “Look at dose baby breads. They so cute!” “Smells so tasty!”

Yes, a lot of them ended up on the floor, but I didn’t care.. and neither did the dogs. 🙂