Last week we welcomed baby Ryan into our family. While I am enjoying snuggling with him and spending time with my other two kids, I have some special guest bloggers scheduled to share some great posts with you! Today I am so happy to have Megan from Coffee Cups and Crayons sharing a totally fun Thanksgiving painting/cooking activity with us. Welcome Megan!
Hello Toddler Approved readers! I'm Megan from Coffee Cups and Crayons and I am so excited to be guest posting today. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and we do lots of Thanksgiving themed activities at our house during the month of November. One of our family favorites is painted turkey toast!
We like to add a little fun to our food with milk paint. We have made painted pancakes for the letter P and painted One Fish Two Fish sandwiches for Dr. Seuss day and love painting turkey toast!
To make the turkey shape have your child place his/her clean hands on a piece of bread--the colors look better on white bread, but we use whole wheat and it works out just fine.
Trace their hands with edible markers. If you are worried about the food coloring just make sure to cut off the colored part before you give it back to the kids. If you don't have edible markers just have them push down on the bread to make a imprint.
Cut out the hand shapes with kitchen scissors. (Kitchen scissors are my absolute favorite kitchen supply of all time and I use them to cut up everything from pizza, to sandwiches, to cilantro.)
Then get the milk paint and paint brushes ready. To make milk paint mix whatever milk you drink with a little bit of food coloring.
We normally buy all natural food coloring from Whole Foods because I am not a huge fan of artificial coloring. We were out of every color except red the day we made these, however, so I used the Wilton cake decorating colors. Both types of food coloring work equally well so use whatever you feel most comfortable with or have on hand.
Let them paint! We have paintbrushes that are only used for food painting. If you've never painted food before just buy the cheapest tiny paintbrushes you can find and wash them with dish soap before you use them. Encourage them to paint lightly, if it gets too soggy it will take longer to toast and the drier parts may get a little crispy.
Place on a non-stick baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 5-8 minutes depending on your oven and how wet the bread is.
Once the bread is toasted it's time to eat! Painted turkey toast is perfect for a fun breakfast or kid snack. It's also a great activity for keeping little ones occupied on Thanksgiving morning while the adults are busy prepping dinner.
Megan is the creator of Coffee Cups and Crayons, a blog that shares fun and useful ideas for modern parents. You can follow all of her learning activities, kids crafts, and party inspiration on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and G+.
This is perfect for my preschool co-op, thanks!!!
This is such a cute idea!! I'll definitely be doing this with my daughter very soon!! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the guest post spot! Hope you are having fun with your little cutie!
I'm writing because I run a sensory site and am looking for great ideas for Thanksgiving. And as any parent, we’re looking for terrific Thanksgiving crafts and ideas for kids with Sensory Processing Disorder and on the Autism Spectrum. Would you add a link to a craft idea or two on our blog? Here's the link to share and get more traffic to your site… thesensoryspectrumblog.com/2012/11/04/calling-all-bloggers-fun-family-thanksgiving-crafts-ideas-wanted/