This digging for gold edible sensory play set up is perfect as a St. Patrick’s Day activity for kids. Baby-safe edible play is so much fun!
Sensory play is so beneficial to kids. By engaging the senses and exploring materials tactilely, children remember information better and are able to process learned materials with greater ease.
This edible sensory play is a fun activity for St. Patricks’s Day with kids, or for any other time of the year as well! Bonus, it makes great sensory play for 1 year olds and older children alike.
Digging for Gold Edible Sensory Play
This edible sensory play uses pudding as a base, making this a great choice for baby safe sensory play. Children can squish and explore the pudding with their hands, get messy, and dig for gold!
What you need:
- pistachio pudding
- plastic gold coins
- large plastic bin
- tablecloth or towel
How to set up the edible sensory play:
Make the pistachio pudding according to package instructions. If you have instant pudding mix, this should be fairly quick. However, other pudding mixes might take longer to set, so keep that in mind for the prep of this activity.
Place plastic gold coins at the bottom of a tupperware bin, and place the bin on top of a towel or plastic tablecloth, this one is bound to get messy!
Once set, scoop the prepared pudding on top of the gold coins and spread. This will hide all of the gold coins under the green pudding.
Invite the children to go on a gold treasure hunt! They can dive into the pudding, using their hands to squish and move the pudding, uncovering the buried treasure.
Why is Edible Sensory Play Important?
This is such a fun messy play activity for kids! Babies and toddlers (and older children too) like to explore material with their mouths, which is important. A baby’s mouth has more nerve endings than any other part of the body. If they really wants to find out what something feels like, they put it in their mouth!
Finding baby-safe material is critical to engaging in sensory play with this age group, which keeps the play open-ended and easier for them to explore.
Troubleshooting this activity for use with babies
A couple of safety notes:
- This activity uses pistachio pudding for the edible sensory play base. This pudding does contain pieces of nuts which could be troublesome for 1) very small babies and 2) those with nut sensitivities. As an alternative, use vanilla pudding with green food dye (we like to use the natural food coloring).
- This activity uses plastic gold coins to dig for. These are fairly large, but could still pose a choking threat if children were to place the in their mouths. Omit the gold for small children where this might be a concern, and simply allow them to play and get messy in the pudding!
Have so much fun digging for gold in this St. Patrick’s Day edible sensory play activity!
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