Let’s Taco ’bout these awesome EASY play food tacos!

Use craft felt and dried pinto beans to create your own taco dinner play food set!

Janie and I have been loving the pretend play age and having fun making our own play food sets.  Who needs store bought when you can create something together for so cheap?  First we made a play food yarn spaghetti dinner (with a felt salad), and now we have this fun taco dinner idea to share!  We’ve had this out on our play table for a week, and the three younger kids have had so much fun with it.

We eat a lot of tacos at our house, so seemed like a natural choice for our next play food set!  I started with several colors of felt.  The tortilla color is just about perfect – that heather tan color came from Hobby Lobby.  Well, all of the felt came from Hobby Lobby but that tan is a color that I’m not sure other stores will carry. Most stores do have a light tan, though.

The red is an extra thick piece of felt, which worked well making chopped tomatoes.

I traced a plastic bowl to make a pattern for cutting the tortillas.  Then I just cut shredded cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce, and ground beef.

I put out some dried pinto beans that were left over from another activity (our planting flowers sensory tub) and that was it!  So easy.  Then it was time to play!

The added benefit of this activity is that it’s sooooo good for fine motor practice.  Sorting out all the pieces again after playing is a great activity too. (Janie loves to keep it all neat!) I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this after almost 8 years of blogging, but my degree is in special education.  As an educator, I can see so many therapeutic benefits to this activity – fine motor skills, social (making tacos and sharing with others), sorting the materials again, etc.

Have fun playing!  Be sure to check out our play food spaghetti dinner as well.  Another of Janie’s favorite activities is this easy DIY doll house block set.  It’s fun for pretend play with little toy people.