Pretend Play Apple Pie

Fall is probably my favorite season for activities, because everything from pumpkin to apples lends itself to wonderful crafts, activities, and snacks!

This week we used our book for inspiration to create an Apple Pie Kid”s Craft that looks cute, smells great, and gave busy little hands something to work on. It only took a few supplies and about 15 minutes to complete.

Apple Pie Kid’s Craft

This week we dove into How to Make an Apple Pie And See The World and this activity was a great accompaniment to it. Not only did we reap the benefits of creating this apple pie but our kitchen smells heavenly where it sits on the counter!

You will need:

• an inexpensive pie pan (Dollar Tree)
• cotton balls
• cream colored felt
• cinnamon
• cloves
• vanilla
• allspice
• plastic gallon zippered bag
• hot glue gun/sticks

You could also use cinnamon essential oil to scent your creation.

Directions:

First we laid out a single layer of cotton balls in our pie dish, adding a few more to round out the top. This gave us an idea of how many we would need. Place your cotton balls in a gallon plastic bag and add cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and vanilla. How much you use is up to you, more will give you a stronger pie smell.  Shake vigorously, this is a great job for busy little hands.

Set the bag aside while you work on your “crust”.

To make the crust, cut 8 felt pieces lengthwise, about 1/2″ wide.

This next part is definitely for grown ups to help with- Use hot glue to secure 4 strips on one side of the pie tin, make sure they are well stuck on just one end.

Repeat in the opposite direction, glueing down one side only.

Now you can show little hands how to weave one set of strips through the other side, over and under, in and out until your pie has a beautiful lattice crust. This is a great activity for building fine motor development, coordination, and patience!

Fold back your woven crust and carefully stuff the scented cotton balls into the pie pan. It was great how the spices colored the cotton balls so that they resembled cooked apples.

Lay your crust back down and hot glue it on the other side of the pie tin, after the glue cools and sets cut off the excess “crust”.

To make our pie look more realistic we dipped a fresh cotton ball in cinnamon and “browned” the edges and a little on top by dabbing it over the felt.

This apple pie kids activity gave us fine motor practice, a yummy scented addition to the house, and a great piece for dramatic play!

To resent your pie you can add fresh spices through one of the holes or drop cinnamon essential oil into it.

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