Marshmallow Tinker Tray

Marshmallows

Can you believe I don’t really like marshmallows? Well, I don’t like to eat them.

When I came home with SIX bags of marshmallows the other day my husband was a little taken aback. Who in the world would be eating all of those?!?! Certainly not me. And my boys can only take one or two, six bags seemed a little excessive…

This post contains affiliate links

But it’s only excessive if you plan on eating them. If you’re doing activities with them, it’s all good 😉

Read: 30+ Clever Activities that use Marshmallows!

Plus the marshmallows came in such fun designs, I really couldn’t leave until I had a complete collection (see: gingerbread men, Christmas trees, stars, snowmen, mini mallows, jumbo mallows…)

I added a few of the different types to a tray and looked for toothpicks…

(turns out we used all our toothpicks in our last marshmallow activity and I never replaced them, so I added mini skewers.)

I was initially planning on making marshmallow patterns on toothpicks for a simple preschool math activity, but once I saw the skewers my mind flooded with images of old-school Tinker Toys and I knew this activity was meant to be an open-ended tinker tray!

Read more about Tinker Trays here

My kids started tinkering and making things right away! Marshmallow robots, merry-go-rounds, mini barbells, etc. Their imaginations went wild!

Read: Baby Bumblee Marshmallows

The creativity that comes out of kids still amazes me. I had ONE activity in mind (patterns), but when my kids had the freedom to approach the tray with their own ideas, they made it so much more!

Read: Out-of-this-world Marshmallow Constellations

The variety of marshmallows really inspired lots of pretend play and story-telling as well. I knew I made a good decision buying all those ‘mallows 😉

And as for eating the marshmallows, no more than 6 were eaten in the process of the activity. Not too bad, in my opinion!

Try this activity with your munchkins and share a picture of it on Instagram! Don’t forget to tag me 🙂