The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

Play Dough Sweet Shop!

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We have had the most wonderful fun all week playing at sweet shop imaginative play with play dough sweets, chocolates and lollipops! 

 The play was sparked off by the batch of chocolate play dough that we made earlier in the week. This created some wonderful imaginative play with chocolates being made in the “chocolate factory”, boxes being filled up and then the request came for a sweet shop to sell them in!

For a sweet shop, we needed to add a couple more flavours of play dough so that we could increase the number of things we could make to sell, so we made some pink strawberry play dough and yellow vanilla play dough too. YUM!

To make these delicious strawberry and vanilla scented play doughs, you simply add flavouring at the same time as the appropriate colouring, at the end of our usual easy no-cook recipe. This takes only 4 minutes from start to finish, lasts for months in a zip-loc bag and is pretty fail-safe!
So, with chocolate, strawberry and vanilla play dough all to hand, as well as some beads and cup cake cases, we set to “work” in the sweet factory creating wonderful things to sell in our little sweet shop. 
Cakie dreamt up some delicious ideas, such as lollipops, strawberry and vanilla creams, sherbets and chocolates in wrappers.
To make the lollipops we rolled the dough into a ball, flattened it with the palm of the hand and then stuck half a BBQ skewer into the middle. (Be sure to cut off the pointy ends before you use these sticks.)
And because I just couldn’t resist it,  I found some old jars and made some labels for us to keep all of the delicious creations in! I was having just as much fun as the girls!

Even little Pop was fully entranced by this game and enjoyed the rolling, squishing and flattening element of play the most! She was also very good at decorating the sweets and has mastered to art of pretending to eat them (with just the occasional lick!) down to perfection.

We set up a production line rolling up the dough into little balls to create the sweeties and filled up jars, crates and paper cases to display them all in our role-play shop area.

I found some clear cellophane and cut it into smallish squares, which we used to wrap around some of the balls to turn them into lemon and strawberry sherbets! Mmmmmmm, so realistic and mouth-watering!

They also looked rather beautiful in the jar, ready to tempt all customers into buying them!

Ummmmm, YES please! If only they were real eh?!

This has extended into a lot of maths related pretend play too, with coins being counted out, prices being invented and an understanding of the concept of buying and selling developing. I can’t wait to see what she wants to make next!

Learning Links:


creativity: combine materials to create projects, pretend one object is another in imaginative play, form shapes and models in dough

literacy: create and remain in role in imaginative play, tell stories in play, take on a character, recount experiences in the correct order

physical development: fine motor control via pushing, squeezing, rolling, flattening, moulding, transporting

maths: counting objects, filling and emptying jars, talking about sizes and shapes

phse: concentrating for extensive periods on activities of own choosing, co-operation and sharing of resources

Cakie: 3 years 5 months
Pop: 22 months

Comments

  3. Cerys @ Rainy Day Mum says

    These are the moments that I am looking forward to creating with J and T the most. I remember them from my child hood and they are what make being children magically you have 2 very lucky children and they will look back when they are older and remember things like this with huge smiles on their faces.

    • Anna @ The Imagination Tree says

      I hope so Cerys! I remember so much pretend play from childhood- it really is magical as you say. And I know how you feel- I felt like I had to wait for EVER to be able to do this sort of thing, but it will come soon I promise!

  9. Morgan says

    We did this in my preschool class a few years back and it was so much fun! Although the set up wasn’t nearly as cute as what you have done here!! I love the little pink stand. We used chocolate and vanilla play dough, I’ll have to try the strawberry with my little one! So cute!

  13. SarahElisabeth says

    Yummy, must show this to my little girl. Really practical question, do you leave the playdough out? We’ve had some creations that the owners were keen to keep on display but they do dry out quite quickly. I guess the sweets in cellophane were fine perhaps the answer?

    • Anna @ The Imagination Tree says

      No we definitely had to wrap everything back up as it dried out overnight otherwise. A few sweets were left by mistake and it wasn’t possible to use them again in the morning. So I either put the lid on the jars or popped them back in a zip-loc bag

  17. Lola says

    What a great idea! Looks lovely, yummy and so much fun!
    Your blog is always so inspiring, it’s always a pleasure to discover so many activities and great projects, thank you from Spain!!!

  18. Turkey Mom says

    Such an adorable project. We were inspired by this (and many others on your blog) and made something on our own. Would love some feedback. We are big fans of all your ideas.