Play Food for Kids

My almost 3 year-old is loving his play kitchen and toy food right now. It seems like his imagination has really come about in the last few weeks. I love watching him create stories and situations with his mind!

After a week of David stealing my "grabbers" (tongs) from the kitchen to play cook with, Pete and I decided to get him a small toy kitchen and toy food set for Christmas this year. He just freaked over it. We spent at least an hour the first night cooking together. His little face was so intent on watching us eat, and enjoy, all the food he was making us.

Here is the play kitchen from American Plastics we bought David from Wayfair for Christmas:

I got the kitchen on sale, with free shipping, and used some Wayfair rewards credits, so I think I paid about $8 for it!

In addition to the kitchen, we also got the kids the Little Tike's Barbecue Set and a Smoothie Set with a "real" blender. David likes to "grill like Daddy" and James loves to put play fruit in the blender and push the button to make it spin.

There are so many other ways to use play food without buying a $15 plastic set at the store. After we set up the play kitchen for the kids, my Mom and Grandma started saving their empty food containers from home and gave them to the kids to play with. Like: macaroni and cheese boxes, butter boxes, plastic cream cheese containers, and more.

In addition to the empty containers from home, I found a blog post about inspiring felt food patterns via The Mombot:

Photo Credit // pink.lemonade on flickr 

For a huge list of felt food tutorials, visit Apartment Therapy's Free Felt Food Tutorials post, which includes tutorial links for: doughnuts, eggs, ravioli, sandwiches and chips, Popsicles, and so much more!

Don't you just want to eat this felt eggs and bacon breakfast from Days Gone By Design Blog? I do!

Photo Credit // Days Gone By Design Blog

Even though we just added a 100 piece food set to our living room toy area, and a plastic kitchen to boot, I could watch David and James play, interact and use their imaginations with their play food all day!

Did you hit a home run with your kids on any of their Christmas gifts this year? Do your kids like to play with toy food, too?