{Play} Fun With Candy! Making Candy Patterns
November 9, 2011 in All Posts, Fun With Food!, Play, Toddler Activities
I’ve heard from a lot of my mom friends that they’ve instituted one-week and two-week Halloween candy rules, as in, you can eat all you want (or one piece a day) for a week and then it’s all getting thrown out. In our house, I instituted a one-hour rule, because really, does a 2.75 year old ever need to be stuffing her belly full of Kit Kats or does a 17 month old need to be gluing the few teeth he has together with Laffy Taffy? (I know you thought that’s what I might actually be feeding them, but no, it’s not true).
After I carefully inspected all the candy for razor blades, I threw out everything they couldn’t gobble up and saved the ones I thought we might be able to play with. You know we’re a fan of playing with our food around here!
The m&ms were perfect for making patterns, which Jane has really been into lately.
Materials
- any candy that can be glued (we had m&ms and jelly bellys on hand)
- a paper plate
- glue
Step 1
Set out the candy in a nearby dish and provide your toddler with a paper plate and glue.
Step 2
Have her squeeze glue onto the plate.
And more glue!
Step 3
Then let her play around with the candy and create a pattern.
We only had two colors, but you could get into more complicated, intricate patterns if you had a bigger assortment.
Jane decided she would put together her own black and orange patterned “snake.”
She discovered on her own that eating the candy that already had glue on it wasn’t a great idea, so I didn’t worry about that, but you might want to supervise your little one just in case!
For more ways to play with your food, check out these other posts in our Fun With Food! series:
- Fun With Gumdrops! (make gumdrop-toothpick sculptures)
- Fun With Pasta! (make painted pasta necklaces)
- Fun With Beans! (learn shapes, sizes, colors & more)
- Fun With Toast! (turn your breakfast into a work of art)
LEARN! Fine motor skills, pattern recognition, planning
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Chrissy – who has written 422 posts on The Outlaw Mom® Blog - Creative Living in a Conventional World.
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Good idea! My poor kids- They never get to go through their weekly pinata loot and until this year, the Great Pumpkin always swept their candy away and left a puzzle and some dried apples. Now, at night, they get to go through their bags to pick one piece of candy OR we do a treat like hot cocoa and marshmallows. We’ve recently started doing a Family Fruit Night thing where we all sit around after dinner, after dessert, and pick a fruit to sit and eat together around the table. It’s turned into something fun and helps to cancel out the skittles.
I like this idea of playing with food, though!
I always thought people who gave out non-candy items or “nature’s candy” were Halloween grinches, but now that I have really young kids, I can see how that’s a good idea. Next year we are going to do different bowls for different ages so the little ones can get something cool and the big ones can get their candy fix.
Love this idea! Great use of Halloween candy!
Glad you liked it! I felt bad throwing it out, but didn’t want us to eat it and didn’t want to donate it to other kids, because it’s really not food. Thanks for stopping by
Hi there! Thanks for your sweet comment
You ended up in my spam folder, but I found you and dragged you out!