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You are here: Home / In the Kitchen / Cooking with Kids~Seashell Snack & Play

Cooking with Kids~Seashell Snack & Play

By Shaunna Evans 17 Comments · This content may contain affiliate links.

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This month’s theme for the Poppins Book Nook is Beach and Ocean.  The girls took a big interest in seashells earlier this summer, and that inspired a lot of play and learning. Today I’m sharing one of their favorite shell activities…a tasty treat with an open invitation to play with your food!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

Cooking with Kids: Summer Seashell Snack made with frozen pudding seashells

Find all of our beach activities in our printable lesson plans
for home preschool and preschool classrooms.

When we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell! Lovey asked if we could find some shells to eat. She knew we couldn’t eat real shells, but it did start the discussion that inspired this little kids snack.

Ingredients

  • Coconut cream pudding
  • Chocolate pudding
  • Cool whip
  • Blue and red food coloring
  • Graham crackers
  • Shell mold
  • Candy & lollipop Mold/Seashell (We have two of them)

Cooking with Kids-Summer SnackDirections

  • Have kids help make the chocolate pudding and the coconut pudding.  Even young toddlers can help stir. We scooped a small amount of the coconut pudding into its own container and added a couple drops of red food coloring to make the pink seashells.
  • Before you place the containers of pudding in the fridge to set, fill the seashell candy mold with pudding. We used a funnel to make pouring a little easier and less messy. Then we placed the mold in the freezer so we would have frozen seashells for our treat.
  • Place a few graham crackers in a zip-top bag and let kids crush them up. If you want leave some whole so the kids can scoop the pudding.
  • Add a couple drops of blue food coloring to some cool whip to make the “ocean water.” Blue jell-o would also be great for this part of the snack, but we were a little impatient that day and wanted to get to playing and eating!
  • Once the pudding shells are frozen, take them out of the freezer and let them sit for a few minutes. They should melt just enough to come out of mold easily.
  • Have kids help arrange all of the ingredients on a tray (or in individual snack cups) to make their own sandy beach summer snack.

Frozen Shell Snack

We had been outside playing in the kiddie pool, so this was a nice little treat to bring out. It was both a snack and an invitation to play with your food! No worries about getting too messy or needing to clean up. They were free to snack and play as they wanted.

Tinker immediately felt the frozen pudding seashells and decided to test them out. “Choc-it, Momma!!”

Frozen Kids Treat for Summer

Lovey decided to test out the cool whip…first by eating, then by painting herself with it!

Messy Kids Snack

It was a bit messy–but that was the point! Full bellies and happy little ones!

Play with your food--Summer Snack

Do you ever encourage your kids to play with their food?

Get a Full Week of Beach Theme Learning and Play

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:

1) Beach 5 Senses Recording Sheet
2) Initial Sound Clip Cards
3) Seashell and Bucket Rhyming Game (-en, -at, -et, and -ug word families)
4) Seashore Counting Mats for Numbers 1-15
5) At the Beach Emergent Reader (2 Versions)
6) 1-35 Beach Theme Calendar and Number Cards
7) Beach Pattern and Counting Seashell Cards
8) Sand Castle Shape Matching Game
9) Uppercase and Lowercase Alphabet Matching Flip Flop Cards

Get Your Lesson Plans

Home Preschool Beach Theme Lesson Plans

Preschool Classroom Beach Theme Lesson Plans

Find more inspiration in our ocean theme.

Ocean Theme

 

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Filed Under: Book Related Activities, In the Kitchen, Invitations to Play, Ocean, Poppins Book Nook, Preschool, Sensory, Summer, Toddler Tagged With: beach snack, beach theme, cooking with kids, frozen snack for kids, ocean activities, ocean theme, sensory play, snacks, summer activities

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Next Post: Preschool Science Investigation~Create a Boat »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Harlow's Harvest

    September 9, 2020 at 5:44 am

    This Seashell Snack & Play looks so fun! Kids will love it!

    Reply
  2. Blayne

    July 31, 2013 at 8:09 pm

    This is such a delicious and adorable activity!! I love it! 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      August 5, 2013 at 1:45 pm

      Thanks, Blayne! It was definitely tasty 🙂

      Reply
  3. Gail @ BibleLoveNotes.com

    July 30, 2013 at 11:31 pm

    This looks like something my grandchildren would love. dirt cake is one of their favorites, but I like the idea of sand instead of dirt. Very cute!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      August 5, 2013 at 1:47 pm

      My brother’s favorite cake is dirt cake. He asks for it every year on his birthday! 🙂

      Reply
  4. Lorie

    July 30, 2013 at 10:56 pm

    We have those molds and I never thought about putting pudding in them. Thanks for such a great idea!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      August 5, 2013 at 1:48 pm

      So glad to share! I’ve had them since my wedding (umm, 6 years ago) and just figured it out 🙂

      Reply
  5. Mary Catherine

    July 30, 2013 at 2:13 pm

    This looks like a yummy treat! LOVE it!!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      August 5, 2013 at 1:48 pm

      I can verify that it was indeed yummy 😉

      Reply
  6. Jodie @ Growing Book by Book

    July 30, 2013 at 1:39 pm

    What a yummy sensory experience!

    Reply
  7. Stephanie

    July 30, 2013 at 9:11 am

    I love this! So fun, creative, and YUMMY!

    Reply
  8. Andrea @ No Doubt Learning

    July 30, 2013 at 1:48 am

    YUM! Looks tasty! I’ve heard that sometimes when you let kids play with their food, it encourages those picky eaters to eat 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      August 5, 2013 at 1:50 pm

      I’ve heard that, too! Although I don’t have picky eaters, so I can’t confirm. I will say that letting them play with their food sometimes seems to keep them from wanting to play with it ALL the time at the dinner table. 🙂

      Reply
  9. Ashley

    July 29, 2013 at 3:11 pm

    Looks like a pretty yummy beach to me!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 29, 2013 at 9:20 pm

      Thanks, Ashley! It was yummy. I had to taste it, too. 🙂

      Reply
  10. Momma Jo

    July 29, 2013 at 7:25 am

    Oh that’s awesome!!! I love messy play snacks 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 29, 2013 at 9:23 pm

      Thank you! Sometimes it really is more fun to play with your food. 😉

      Reply

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Hi, I’m Shaunna!

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