Edible Sensory Tray
Mud, pebbles, and grass oh my! Doesn’t sound very edible does it? Don’t worry, I didn’t actually give my kids mud and tell them they could eat it, although I’m not sure they wouldn’t have actually enjoyed that. A few months ago my husband made some Jell-O for them and they loved it. I’ve never really cared for it, plus as a vegetarian it’s not something I eat (did you know Jell-O wasn’t vegetarian friendly??) but that didn’t stop me from following up their Jell-O loving experience by raiding the aisle at the grocery store. Fast forward to yesterday and S-U-R-P-I-S-E, it was all still in the cabinet. I noticed it all the other day and realized I was going to have a rainy day at home this week so decided to throw this together for them and it was a GREAT.
For this activity you’ll need:
- Tray
- 1 box lime Jell-O
- 1 box chocolate pudding
- 2 TBS mini marshmallows
- 2 cup oats
- blue food coloring
- water
- animals
- optional (fruit loops)
The prep work for this tray will take you a few hours, or it can be set up the day before, but you’ll need some time for the Jell-O to set, the oats to dry and water to freeze. To start, fill a zip lock bag with 2 cups of oats , add 1/4 cup of water and 14 drops of blue food coloring *make sure your bag is closed* and shake it to mix everything together. Once it’s mixed dump it out onto a paper towel lined cookie sheet and set overnight, or place it in a window with lots of sun to speed up the drying process. Next follow the directions for the Jell-O and pudding and let them set in the fridge. Finally, take a small Tupperware, fill it with water and a few drops of the blue food coloring, mix it together then put it in the freezer.
After all your bases are done grab your tray and start setting it up! I put the chocolate pudding along one side of the tray, placed the ice next to it and then lined both with the blue crumbly oats, my thought here was to make a stream leading to the ice pond. Next add the Jell-O for the grass and then the mini marshmallows for some pebbles. Lastly, I grabbed the bag of fruit loops from the cabinet and crunched up some greens ones before sprinkling them on top of the Jell-O for some more texture.
Now that your tray is set up you can add in your figurines, we used some of the Toob animals we have that I’ve picked up from Michaels & Dollar Tree. The final thing you’re going to need are some “tools”, I gave them spoons and forks to scoop up the mud and grass, a few bowls of water and our giant eye droppers to help melt the ice. We, because I joined in, played with this tray on the kitchen floor for a good hour! They cleaned the animals off a few times after they kept getting “stuck in the mud” and of course snuck a few bites in between of the pudding. Once they were done mushing all the food together I dumped out most of the tray, leaving only the ice, which they melted with some water and their eye droppers.
It’s going to be HOT the next few days so if you’re anything like me we’ll be enjoying the mornings and evenings by the water, but spending the peak hotness inside cooling off, re-hydrating and maybe making some more edible activities!