Pretend Play: Valentine Cookie Bakery

I can’t take credit for this idea:  Valerie from Frugal Family Fun is the genius behind this fun pretend play activity! I was motivated to make these felt cookies because we are in charge of Parents Night Out at our church this Saturday and I needed to come up with some activities for the kids to do. I thought it would be something that the girls especially would enjoy.

I let Big Brother try it out ahead of time and I was so surprised by how much he enjoyed it! Over 30 solid minutes of rolling out felt cookies, using the cookie cutter, icing, and adding sprinkles! He could have cared less about the felt snowman kit I made him, but he loves the cookie shop. Go figure.

Here’s what you’ll need:  felt in various colors (we used light brown, red, pink, and white), heart cookie cutters, rolling pin (we used the one that came with our Play-Doh), and pinking shears (or regular scissors).

 1. Use a cookie cutter to trace the heart shape on your piece of light brown felt.

 

 

 

 

 

 2. Carefully use pinking shears or scissors to cut exactly on the traced line. You’ll be using both the heart AND the remaining felt, so you want to keep everything neat.

 

 

 

 

 

 3. Sandwich some hot glue between two of the hearts to make a thicker, plump-looking cookie (after all, that’s how I like my cookies). :)

 

 

 4. Cut some felt hearts from the remaining colors of fabric that are slightly smaller than the ‘cookies’ themselves.

 

 

 5. Use the scrap pieces to cut some ‘sprinkles’.

 

 

 6. Let your child get to work. Roll out the dough…

 

 Cut each heart out using the cookie cutter.

 

 

 Add some icing…

 

 

 

 

 

 …and some sprinkles!

 

 

They look almost good enough to eat!

 

 

 Invite Little Brother (who just awoke from his nap) to be the taste-tester. Excuse Little Brother for placing the cookie on his head rather than pretending to eat it. Apparently, this is what we like to do with cookies.

 

 

 After much screaming and fighting, break out the extra cookies (and ‘dough’) to let Little Brother have a turn placing the cookies back into the ‘dough’.

 

And repeat (minus the screaming and fighting part, of course).