Community Voices for Health

By: Kathleen Blandin

With Halloween approaching, you may be curious about how to get your little one into the spooky holiday spirit while shielding them from the scarier Halloween things. A simple way to get spooky is to combine things they already love: crafting and food! Show them a little bit of spook doesn’t have to be so overwhelming!

Below are four fun food activities that will leave your little one busy and excited about Halloween. These are great food crafts to try and do when you are trying to cook dinner and keep your little one occupied and in sight. The best part is that almost all food items listed you already have in your cupboard!

CHEESE WITCHES BROOM STICKS

Kids love using their imagination and these witches’ broomsticks do just the trick. All you have to do is cut string cheeses in half with scissors. With the halves in hand, it’s up to you to cut the smaller cheese sticks 75% of the way up in multiple different directions to give a “broom” the bristled-look or have your child play by pulling apart themselves to add more fun. After that you simply press a pretzel stick into the uncut part of the cheese and let your child’s imagination take over.

COOKIE CUTTER-NO MESS FUN

Another LOW mess, food-fun activity is to have your little one use all different kinds of cookie cutters in all shapes and sizes. I used Halloween-shaped cutters respectively but using any holiday ones will still be fun. You can even give them a plastic knife or spoon to make their own shapes like how I made a jack-o’-lantern!  I used soft tortillas and it gives them a no-mess, fun way to be creative! Not only can they play with the new shapes and characters they have created but they can eat them too!

If you are making tacos or other meals that require tortillas, it gives them a way to make their own master chef creations and possibly have picky eaters want to eat more than they normally do!

RICE CRISPY MONSTERS

Rice Crispy Monsters may be a little messier than others but the little ones will really enjoy it! Get your sprinkles out, your crazy edible eyes and anything else that you can think of. Pretzels, for example, can be added for arms and legs as an extra touch. The great thing about these is that you can make rice crispy treats with your little pal or just grab a box of pre-made ones (I won’t tell!).

I melted some candy melts in a coffee mug and used a spoon to drip some colored “spook.” If you are making more than just a few, you can easily dunk them all in with more melts and let them cool before handing them off to your little creature-creator.

SPIDER CRACKERS

This spider cracker one is simple and gives your tiny master mind a way to stack and snack. I put all the ingredients together on a plate, much like a painter with a palate. I used an ice cream scoop and got a good scoop of cream cheese (you could use peanut butter, cheese spread—the choices are endless), crackers, here I used edible eyes but raisins could work just as well and some pretzel sticks. Let the creativity flow as they dive into making spiders or caterpillars or any other creepy crawler critter they can think of.

If you have any other fun and easy food snack crafts you would like to share, please put them in the comments section at the bottom of this post!