Will 'food toys' stimulate her imagination and free play?

[onelovelivity]

My DD is 21 months and is really enjoying spending time with me in the kitchen pretending to make things. She has her own kitchen cupboard full of little pots, bowls and spoons and now she also enjoys using bits of real food to mix and pour– dried peas, oats and pasta etc. It adds mess but it really keeps her happy - the other day she played for about an hour by herself which is super useful for me to have time to make lunch.

With her 2nd birthday on the horizon I am planning to get a wooden play oven made locally for her and was thinking I could get some toy-food. I've seen some really good stuff online that is naturally made (wooden, knitted and felt) and reflects our vegan diet. Whilst I do think they look like fun I'm wondering if these ready made items are really going to stimulate her imagination or add to her play in any meaningful way? Maybe I should just make her some playdough instead and continue with the real food? It may seem like a trivial matter but just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this.

[sapphire_chan]

I'm confused why a realistic looking oven would be fine, but realistic toy food would "hinder play".

[spmamma]

My DD loves her play kitchen and play food. She plays with it every day, cooking up her favorite meals. Sometimes she makes something with her play food, other times she grabs imaginary ingredients to make her culinary concoctions.

I think it's nice to have some realism in her kitchen. It helps build her vocabulary and inspires her imagination. Have fun with your little one!!

[JBaxter]

we particularly enjoy the M&D food you can slice.

[Thalia]

DD loves her play food. She's a very social type, so for her its mostly about creating picnics for her animals or for mommy and daddy, or assigning certain foods to certain toys. She also sometimes plays with the food like blocks, just seeing how pieces fit together and in various containers.

I wouldn't want to keep real food in her room to play with, because of mice/bugs, even for stuff like dried pasta. We did have some dried beans that we played with for a while upstairs, and they just got EVERYWHERE!

We still play with real food in the real kitchen, though. It's just nice for her to be able to do that kind of play upstairs in her bedroom as well, and for her to have total control over her kitchen. Because of safety issues, there is a lot of stuff in our real kitchen that I can't let her play with even though she's very interested in it.

[sapphire_chan]

And having play food won't keep her from being interested in cooking with you.

It's not like she's doing real cooking with the "real" food she has now. If you were really pretending to cook beans and rice and such, you wouldn't pour and stir and such, you'd put it in a pot, then wait a reeeeeeeally long time, and call it done.

[serenbat]

Maybe I should just make her some playdough instead

just so you know- this doesn't work well at all- playdough will dry and get crumbly - if you want to make food - use an oven bake clay - polymer type

we like old plastic food best, easy to wash and some wood we threw away because the paint came off and this was $$ safe stuff

we also do lots of plastic (old vintage stuff) we are green and don't like the idea of wood being cut down, recycling

one new set of items we have are the K-mart / Kenmore kitchen items- toaster, blender, mixer, coffee maker- very real and keeps hands off of the real stuff - too each their own- we started out with the non-plastic and the first change our kids saw other with plastic it became more realistic and a wanted item

another thing that we do is have a real cutting board (small) and dull cutting tools that we use in the REAL kitchen - no problem with real cooking help

out "play" kitchen is in the dinning room- right off from the kitchen

[Harmony96]

I've made a ton of cotton play food for DD and others, and DD really loves hers. One thing I made recently for her is pizza, 8 slices, and she arranges it in the circle and then proudly proclaims that she "made" a pizza, lol. And she still pretends to eat and cook and she'll put the food in and out of various bits of her kitchen and its accessories.

[~cassie~]

Mine like their play food. We have a Melissa and Doug set and they serve up all kinds of meals. We just to have a grocery cart and they would play grocery store, then play restaurant, etc. Sometimes they need those tangible items to do more pretend play

[onelovelivity]

Thanks everyone - it's really good to hear the experiences of others and know that the little ones make up games around their play food. I think my DD is going to love it!

Harmony - I checked your facebook page and your work is fabulous.

[Katie T]

Originally Posted by JBaxter

we particularly enjoy the M&D food you can slice.

We have this as well and even I enjoy playing with the kids with it. Our kids love there toy kitchen and food. Even my almost 10yo sits in there and "cooks" I vote yes, we still do some real food in the play kitchen (dry food of course) but I bet she will like it and I do think it is great for her imagination.

[Harmony96]

Originally Posted by onelovelivity

Harmony - I checked your facebook page and your work is fabulous.

Thanks.

[honey-lilac]

I went and got oodles of wooden food from online stores (Waldorf type) for the kids' playkitchen - totally unhappy with them. Sure, they're CUTE, but most of them were very small (like the banana is an inch long, the jam jar is like... 3/4" tall... Not worth the prices I paid. (Except the grapes, those were really cool.) Plus my kids have a wooden kitchen and metal pots and everything ends up being so LOUD when they bang, bang, bang, bang, bang against each other.

We also got a plastic set at Target which was a LOT cheaper and had more variety - my complaint with that is that the majority of the 80 pieces in the box were like 20 french fries, 20 potato chips etc - and the fruits & veggies were really easily smashed. Like, step on a pepper and it's basically smooshed.

The best deal for us? Felt and knitted food. Etsy has adorable ones but they're pretty pricey. I ended up making most of ours (and I am totally NOT crafty normally) because it's pretty easy to do and easy to customize. I took my inspiration off of Etsy pages. If I had the money, I would totally have spent it on them, because I want to support WAHM's and they did a better job of the crafts than I did - but the kids can't tell the difference, so that's what matters.

There's pros and cons to each type of food. And in the end, don't stress too much. My daughter's very favorite playfood? A "block cookie tower" - she makes "cookies" out of blocks and then runs to me with them. And my son, the little chef - he makes elaborate drinks (lemonade, orange juice, cookie juice, etc.) and elaborate fruit pies and soups - all without using a dang thing. He just stirs in the air and brings it to me, or squeezes a bedknob for juice. Go figure.

ETA: And my DD is maniacal; most often she puts her doll into the oven. "Look Mommy, Rosie getting very hot, [DD's name] cooking Rosie" - followed by an evil laugh. OK, I have a psycho for a daughter, it's alright!!

[btallen]

Like another poster, DS kitchen is in our dining room, right off of our kitchen.

We have a HUGE assortment of food - M&D wooden, Etsy felt, and some nice plastic from the toy store (http://www.amazon.com/Small-World-Li...831349&sr=8-26) that you can peel and cut.

The plastic food and the felt pizza get the most play. The wooden food becomes projectiles and ancient torture devices when you step on them.

DS also has a paper grocery bag full of empty containers (vinegar, honey bear, cracker box, cereal box, etc.) that he uses. I have also caught him "shopping" in my pantry - pulling whatever items he wants and putting them in his refrigerator!

I bought him a set of SS toy pots and pans (like mine) and he has my mini chopper/food processor (without the blade) that is apparently multi-functional. He uses is as a mixer, blender, food processor, and coffee maker! He has some of my measuring spoons and cups, whisk, pot holder, sponge, and empty soap bottle, too.

[redpajama]

My kids, especially my 3-year-old daughter, have gotten a ton of use out of our play kitchen/food/dishes. That said, I recently sold or gave away most of the play food. She played with it often, but we were/are in the process of significantly decreasing the number of toys in our house, and play food, I noticed, was totally expendable. My daughter was just as happy using other things as "food" (even when she still had all the play food). She had some coins that her grandparents gave her, for example, and she was always making "soup" out of that. She would stir legos around in a big pot, and then serve it to us on little plates. She makes food with play dough, then puts it in bowls. She uses paper to make sandwiches. It's more creative, and it's less *stuff* in our house.
I also dyed a huge bag of all different shapes of pasta into all different colors, which we've used to make art projects. I'll eventually let her play with that in her kitchen, and I think she'll really love it. Right now, though, I have a 7-month-old who has too great a fondness for putting small things in her mouth, so...we're waiting on the pasta for now.

But, anyway, my kids have enjoyed lots and lots of pretend shopping, cooking, serving, and eating with our play kitchen/dishes/food.

[JudiAU]

At 3, DS doesn't play all that much with his food and play stove. BUT he does love anything that he can cut so of all of those things, he has always really liked the plan toys cutting food that we have and later, a M&D pizza party. It also occurs to me that all his eating vocabulary and preference is big, he shows a market preference for foods he really likes. Hits include a velcro steak, random pieces of styrofoam "tofu", many berries, and cake.

[jldumm]

we have some felt food and some wooden food. which she uses, but she also uses paper, wooden blocks washcloths etc etc as food and kitchen accessories. So if you are wondering if it would hinder creativity i would say no.