Felt Food

When I started my kindergarten job, my school increased from three teachers to four. That means my class needed all new supplies. This means three things:

1) A lot of supplies were scrounged up from old classes around the district... extra, leftovers, broken things, etc.
2) Some supplies they couldn't find were ordered brand new.
3) Certain things were never acquired at all, and after a few months I gave up hope getting them.

One of those things was play food. I ordered a few things with my classroom money, but play food is rather expensive, and that didn't amount to much for cooking.

 This is the background of why I set out to make felt food. I was pretty excited about the felt food adventure, because when you make your own food you can make INGREDIENTS instead of entire food. For example, I made pizza crust, sauce, shredded cheese, and toppings. I didn't sew it all into a finished dish, because it is my students' job to do the cooking.

All of the flat pieces I cut two felt pieces and one white quilting piece. For the pizza crust, for example, I cut out one circle of felt and one circle of white quilting. Then I sewed those two pieces onto a large piece of felt BEFORE cutting the circle around the third piece. (It's easier than lining up the two pieces exactly).

When I say, "I" sewed, I actually mean, "my mom" sewed... while I did the cutting. Thank goodness for her skills.

We made a lot of fun things.

Breakfast: the most important meal of the day. DISCLAIMER: The banana is from Ikea. It slipped into the breakfast demo. We didn't make a whole lot of 3D foods.

The cookies were pretty easy to make... since they are circles.

Tea time! It was interesting to see which kids knew what the tea bags were for. Luckily, the ones who knew modeled and now tea bags are a commonly used item in my kindergarten kitchen.

Burger buns and burgers are fun to build. Bun, burger, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, bun!

The mixed greens make a lovely salad. When my mom came to visit my class, she kept saying, "I can't get over how Beth just kept tossing that salad and tossing that salad. She sure was intent!" (IKEA TOMATO... another impostor).

Miscellaneous pieces for this and that.

The pizza has a crust, sauce piece, mushrooms, pepperonis, peppers, and cheese. I made the cheese by sewing clumps of little pieces together. Each shred cluster has about ten pieces, and there are probably 15 clusters. 

We also made noodles, sushi, and sock donuts that are not in the pictures. Maybe they'll surface sometime. I got all of my felt in squares from Hobby Lobby. It takes time, but it sure it a cheap way to get some great play food!