Sensory play is a fantastic tool to have in your back pocket as a parent. If you’re new here, you may be wondering, “What is sensory play”? It’s a fun way to help your little ones engage in the world around them through different textures, smells, sounds, and even tastes, all while aiding in the development of important skills.

One of the great things about sensory play is that you can use almost anything around your house to create an immersive experience, like food! And let’s be honest, every mom knows that playing with food is a crowd-pleaser for sensory play. Not only does it fully engage your kiddo’s curiosity, it’s also safe, accessible, and typically either taste-safe or even edible!

The materials you choose to use really shape how your child will interact with the experience. That’s why I’m thrilled to share a round-up of different play ideas using various edible items! These food-based activities are sure to spark your children’s interests. 

10 Food Sensory Play Ideas

What I love most about food sensory play ideas is the way it effortlessly engages our little ones in hands-on, creative experiences. It taps into all 5 senses, which is beneficial for a range of different developmental skills.

You’ll get to introduce different concepts through real foods, like contrasting textures (smooth vs. chunky), different tastes (sweet vs. salty), and even different colors (bright blue vs. pastel pink).

When you tie a learning experience into something tangible, it becomes less intimidating! Your kids will be so wrapped up in how much fun they’re having, that they won’t even realize that they’re actually learning! 

What Are The Benefits Of Using Food For Sensory Play?

• Language development: Your little ones will want to share with you how the experience feels for them, which in turn will expand their vocabulary and improve their communication skills. 

• Fine-motor skill enhancement: Sensory play with food allows your kid to manipulate different items through squishing, cutting, stirring, or squeezing. This strengthens hand muscles and improves hand-eye coordination!

• Multisensory learning stimulation: Food play engages tons of senses at once, which allows kids to connect abstract concepts with concrete experiences. 

• Promotes creativity: When kids explore using food to play, they’re able to experiment with different textures, colors, and shapes, ultimately sparking creativity and curiosity. 

• Improves cognitive functioning: Sensory play activities like sorting by color, shape, and/or size, help develop problem-solving skills and strengthen memory. 

Food For The Senses: 10 Sensory Play Food Ideas

Edible Marshmallow Slime

Slime is all the rage when it comes to our kids, and what way to make it even better, than to make it edible? Plus, aside from being fun, there’s also developmental benefits to playing with slime!

This yummy activity is just a combination of marshmallows, coconut oil, and powdered sugar. It’s so inviting, even the picky eaters will want in! Just keep a close eye on your kiddos during this activity if you want to avoid a MAJOR sugar rush.

The marshmallow makes this slime soft, stretchy, fluffy, and sticky all of which are textures that will make your little ones go “ooh” and “ahh”! It’s great for molding, squishing, and squeezing.

Colorful Noodles

This sensory exploration activity is a favorite in my household. It’s a great way to imitate an outdoor experience, allowing your kids to explore the flowers and textures of the “grass”.

This activity is super easy. Just boil the water for your spaghetti, add oil, salt, a few drops of food coloring, and drain it after it’s fully cooked. Once it’s cooled, put that cooked pasta in a bin and add some of these fun mini flower toys and these bug-themed fruit snacks for a more immersive experience!

This activity is taste-safe, exposes kids to new textures and colors, and most importantly, motivates the development of those fine motor skills!

Edible Beach Sand

Who said you have to go to the beach to make sand castles? With this recipe, your little one still gets all those benefits from a sensory experience, you just don’t have to worry about them ingesting sand!

By combining cooked flour, water, vegetable oil, and food coloring, you have an vibrant edible beach scene that is even better than the real thing. If you want to really step it up, you can even add blue Jell-O to recreate the ocean and throw in some swimming goldfish crackers to add to the experience.

This is great for giving your kids full reign to manipulate the sand in whichever ways they want perfect for promoting creativity. 

Ice Cream In A Bag

This is one of my personal favorite recipes, because it switches out that unhealthy, artificial, store-bought ice cream, and trades it in for something healthier! Not that ice cream is healthy, but, at least we know it doesn’t have any of those weird 14-letter ingredients, right?

Using half & half, rock salt, sugar and some fun flavorings and mix-ins, you can create ice cream in a bag with the theme of your kid’s dreams! Depending on the theme and how healthy (or unhealthy) you want it, consider adding in things like strawberries, granola, oreos, caramel, cinnamon, sprinkles your options are endless! And don’t worry, we’ve got dairy-free alternatives listed as well nobody misses out here! 

The developmental aspects lie in getting your little ones help when making it. Cooking is a fantastic and fun way to teach your little ones life skills in a sensory-friendly way!  

M&M Color Experiment

This activity is always a hit, no matter how many times it’s done. Make patterns or shapes using M&Ms on a plate, and just add a little bit of water in the center of the shape. You don’t want to overfill the plate with water, you want to add just enough so it’s able to reach the M&Ms.

That’s it! It’s an activity that provides intriguing visual effects that will have your kids mesmerized for hours. It’s also an activity that allows you to talk about patterns, color mixing, and why the colors spread so quickly!

It’s colorful, creative, and most importantly, fun!

Colorful Spaghetti Pull

Here’s a little hidden hack if you have picky eaters at home: Sensory play with food helps with texture exploration. Allowing them to learn about new foods can help their eating habits! This activity in particular is what really helped Nicky.

Make some small individual batches of spaghetti, sorting them in different containers so you can add in different food coloring options to each. Grab a bowl, line it with parchment paper, and pour in your gelatin mixture. Add in the pasta leaving some ends out for pulling, and refrigerate for up to 4 hours.

Once it sets, take out the gelatin from the bowl and set it on a flat surface for play time. Your kids will love the array of colored noodles, the texture of the gelatin, and the opportunity to watch the strands continue to magically appear. 

Taste-Safe Paint

This is a PERFECT activity if you’re in that stage where your little one’s curiosity is running wild, and they want to stick everything in their mouth. While it isn’t yummy, it is safe enough for them to put in their mouths. There’s a few different ways you could go about this recipe, too.

You can make a simpler version of this by using pudding, yogurt, or even whipped cream! Just add a few drops of food coloring to your item of choice, and you get a taste-safe alternative to traditional, messier paint. If you want an alternative that’s still taste-safe but not yummy enough to encourage little ones to eat the food, you’ll want to use baked flour and food coloring instead.

This activity opens up your little one to a world of creativity and imagination that they can control. It’s even better when you don’t have to overly worry about them ingesting it! 

Marshmallow Halloween Treats

This kid-friendly sweet treat is definitely more of an indulgence, but sometimes, that’s exactly what we need! Parents included we deserve it. 

This activity is a fantastic bonding experience! These marshmallow treats are a blast to customize, so you and your kiddos will have hours of entertainment. All you have to do is melt some candy melts, dip your marshmallow into the melts using a lollipop stick, and decorate!

These treats aren’t just Halloween-specific, though. You can use red candy to make Santa, yellow candy to make Easter Eggs, or white candy with edible glitter for New Years! The creativity is free to run wild with this activity. 

Colored Rice Dye

Colored rice is a fantastic sensory item to include in your activities because it’s taste-safe, versatile, colorful, and it’s super easy to make.

By using white rice, vinegar, and food coloring, you have a long-lasting food sensory play item that’s useful for tons of activities. You can explore the benefits of sensory bins and use the rice as a base for explorative activities, or, you can hand over some kitchen utensils for littles to practice their motor skills!

It’s an easy-to-make and easy-to-incorporate recipe that provides endless benefits. 

Ice Paint

Maybe ice isn’t technically considered a food item, but it’s too fun not to include. Plus, these basically turn into homemade popsicles! Ditch those paint brushes, we’re using DIY ice paint today.

Fill up an ice cube tray with water and add a drop of food coloring into each slot I recommend doing different colors for a fun rainbow effect! Stick half of a popsicle stick into each slot, setting your mixture to freeze overnight. Once you take them out, hand them over to your kids for some colorful fun.

They won’t be the tastiest popsicles, but your little ones will spend a majority of their play time licking them, nonetheless. This is a beneficial experience in a plethora of ways. Your children will love the cold feeling on their body, and you can even ask them questions about their experience as they create! It’s fun-filled all around. 

Which food items will you be incorporating into your sensory play ideas?

Food doesn’t just have to be for eating, it can also be for playing! Rather than teaching your little ones to play with their food (because I know that may be a concern), it’s actually opening them up into a world of different tastes, textures, scents, and sounds all of which are beneficial for development and for expanding their palette.

You can truly never go wrong with sensory play, it’s endless amounts of fun with endless amounts of benefits. For more exciting and engaging crafts of all kinds, visit the Mothercould blog! Download Mothercould In Your Pocket for lots of hacks, helpful tips and tricks, and lots of interactive play recipes!