Kids love helping in the kitchen, even at a very young age. Start them out with a fun cooking project designed to mix snack time with art. They'll love eating the results of this project, and you'll love how quick and easy it is to set up and clean up.

You need:

• Milk (or water, soymilk, other liquid)


• Food-safe paintbrushes


• Food coloring (any type is fine)


• Small cups or ramekins


• Bread


• Cookie cutters

Do this:

To make the paint: mix a tablespoon of milk with food coloring to achieve desired shade. For maximum ease in mixing and cleanup, we poured milk in a little cup, squeezed food coloring onto a paint brush and mixed it right in with the brush. If you’re concerned about your toddler spilling this milk paint, use yogurt or pudding as paint instead.

Cut out bread with cookie cutter (or leave uncut and just paint slices of bread – that could be fun for school lunch sandwich messages). Paint bread with brush and prepared paint.

Toast in toaster. Serve as desired. We smeared cream cheese for Nemo’s stripes on this example.