Cookie-Making with Toddlers, made easy!

Dolly’s ready to get smushin and sprinklin!

little sprinkle hack… cover all the holes but one! keeps the top clean from dough and only lets out a few sprinkles at a time!

glad there is tape on the lid LOL!

Sure you could break out the Playdoh, but it doesn’t quite have the same taste as home made cookies! Put your OCD aside, these cookies will likely not look like Momma made ’em, but they will taste good since they were made with LOVE by your little one!

Making cookies with a toddler can be a fun activity and a great way for them to burn some energy on a wintery day when you’re stuck inside! (And a great way for YOU to blow your diet, but I digress!) Warning, it can also be MESSY. However, I am a firm believer in making a mess, things are just more fun that way. But to cut back on it, I concocted an idea to let Dolly still shake and sprinkle to her heart’s content: TAPE. Just a few pieces of simple scotch tape to cover up most of the sprinkle holes, and I just turned what could be the end of the sprinkles into an hours worth of fun shake-a shake-a shaking! I let Dolly smush and mush and treat the cookies dough as if it were playdoh or molding clay, stack it on top of the sprinkle containers (saved by the scotch tape for use another time) and cookie cut til her hearts content. I usually get a good 45 mins to an hour of Happy Dolly Time out of cookie making! When I think she’s had enough I make them look as best as I can before popping them in the oven. They may look questionable, but a cookie’s a cookie once it hits your belly!

Dolly at work!

I promise, watching your babe take their first bite of a cookie that THEY MADE will make the next 10 minutes you spend mopping and vaccumming worth it (…maybe! HA!)

Mommy made them look better – Mickey and Minnie shapes!- before they hit the oven!

Just make sure you wash hands very well before and after, and use the tray for them to work on.

Bonus: Getting hands messy in an activity like this is a great fine motor activity, and also, promotes talking, singing, etc. I always hear new songs and new words when we get baking together!