My 3-year-old’s very favorite thing to do is cooking in his play kitchen. It has been his favorite for at least a year and a half, which means we are always looking for fun things to add a little variety to his cooking. He specifically prefers things he can actually “cook” with, like this New Sprouts Set because it has ingredients that he can put together, as opposed to plastic already-made meals.

Since he likes mixing ingredients to make his own meals, we used all kinds of materials to put in his pots and pans. We cut construction paper into little strips for seasoning and used yarn for noodles, or pom-poms for only he knows what. He loves all of those things, often more than any store-bought play food.

A few months ago, my son mentioned he wanted to make tacos with construction paper, which was a great idea! I decided that to make it more sustainable in the long term we could make them out of felt instead.

To be honest, I first tried making them out of craft foam but it just didn’t work as well and I couldn’t keep the tortillas rolled up. So we took a trip to the craft store for a few pieces of felt.

I traced a bowl to make the tortillas and then did my best to make something that looked like grilled chicken, ground beef, and black beans. I am not a crafty mom, so I just quickly cut out a shape that seemed to work and used a black Sharpie to make some grill lines on the chicken and some curves on the beef and beans. Including the trip to the craft store, this project probably took about 45 minutes. It has also been one of his most played-with kitchen items ever since!

Just the other day, the kids had a cash register at one end of the table and a whole Chipotle restaurant set up. I love that for just a few dollars in felt, we now have a new addition to our dramatic play.