Julia Deering - The Playful Parent - 7 ways to happier, calmer, more creative days with your under-fives

Build-a-meal activity. What you’ll need to do beforehand: Cut various shapes out of felt to make some let’s pretend foodstuff – carrots, sausages, cheese, tomatoes, pizza base, ham, bread, broccoli and the like – for some wonderful open-ended dinner-designing. Just provide a plastic plate for the assembling of the meal.

Create a food feast poster. Our local Post Office always stocks loads of stickers, often with food and drink themes, but you can buy them very cheaply online; postage is never much because they’re so light. Invite your little one to create a poster of a feast on some colourful paper using some food and drink stickers. Once made, the poster can be displayed in the kitchen, say, and used for a game where everyone chooses what they would eat at the feast.

Wooden spoon art. Adding colour to a wooden spoon is very satisfying. Provide watercolours, crayons or felt-tips (for older kids) – whatever you think your little one might like best – and a new wooden spoon or two; you can buy them very cheaply at pound shops or online.

Paper plate art. A bag with a paper plate and some crayons, watercolours or pencils inside should inspire your little one to decorate the plate just as they like – there’s no right way of doing it. Dry markers work well on shiny plastic-coated paper plates and are great if you would like to use the same plate a few times. Test which colouring instrument works best on the surface of the paper plates you have first.

Foodie magazine collage. What you’ll need to do beforehand: Scan freebie supermarket magazines, veggie-box delivery catalogues or food supplements in the weekend press for pictures of food. Cut out and collect these over a few weeks before making up a busy bag with lots of these images, a glue stick and a thin piece of card or a paper plate. Let your little one rip, snip (if they’re confident with scissors), arrange and stick the pictures on the card just as they like.

Jigsaws and puzzles. If your child loves a puzzle, surprise them with a forgotten (or new) puzzle in a busy bag. What you’ll need to do beforehand: For a foodie theme, try making your own puzzle by finding a cool picture of a ‘showstopper’ cake or any other wow picture of food. Stick it onto some thin card, and then, on the back with a pencil, mark it up into however many pieces you’d like the puzzle to have – these can be regular or irregular in size and shape; it’s up to you. Cut along the lines and pop the pieces into a busy bag.

Books:Have a special kitchen book basket which occasionally appears to surprise and catch the attention of your little one. You can change the selection of books often to keep it fresh, but here are a few of our food-themed favourites:

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