Hot cocoa play day for preschoolers

The days are getting very cold here and a fun way to warm things up is to have a hot cocoa day…

We had a little bit of everything going on around our classroom including some hot cocoa and marshmallow fine motor play…

We also enjoyed our homemade hot cocoa play dough (I put the hot cocoa playdough inside the hot chocolate mix can before the children arrived). See this recipe for making your own Chocolate Playdough…

The children were quite surprised to discover the hot cocoa playdough once they opened the can…

The children explored the hot cocoa playdough by digging it out with our plastic tongs and filling up their paper cups…

We also did a little hot cocoa painting by mixing a little chocolate extract into our brown paint…

The children glued their hot cocoa mugs to a sheet of blue construction paper…

And then the children painted their hot cocoa mugs with the hot cocoa paint…

And of course, the children added a few marshmallow prints dipped in white paint to top it off…

Afterall, every good cup of hot cocoa has to have marshmallows! …

Some of the children used their marshmallows dipped in white paint to try a little color mixing as well…

Our entire classroom smelled like hot cocoa for the day! We even served up some hot cocoa to drink during our snack time…

A day filled with the wonderful smell of hot cocoa and fine motor marshmallow fun…

Links to grow on…

Playdough recipes from PreKinders

Hot Cocoa ideas save on Delicious….

By Deborah Stewart|2011-12-20T07:00:54+00:00December 20th, 2011|

About the Author: Deborah Stewart

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. has been working and teaching in the field of early childhood education for over 30 years. Deborah currently owns and teaches in her own part-time, private preschool called The Children’s Studio. Deborah’s deep passion for teaching and working with young children is documented and then graciously shared with millions of readers around the world through her blog and other social networking communities. Deborah believes that young children learn best through play and exploration and embraces this belief in all that she does in her own classroom so that she can effectively and passionately share rewarding, real- life, tried-and-true practices with other teachers, parents, and leaders across the field of early childhood education.

14 Comments

Cathy @ NurtureStore December 20, 2011 at 7:09 am - Reply

It’s always fun to ‘hide’ something for the children to discover – I love hot choc playdough idea.
- Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. December 20, 2011 at 8:38 pm - Reply
  
  Hi Cathy,
  The children didn’t realize there was anything in the hot cocoa can for quite awhile so it just sat on the table until finally, one of the children asked me what I had all the playdough toys out for. I said, “well, why don’t you look inside the can and see?”
Esther December 20, 2011 at 8:35 am - Reply

That’s a fun day! Hot Cocoa play day sounds exciting! I like the idea of Marshmallow prints/stamping!
- Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. December 20, 2011 at 8:38 pm - Reply
  
  The children really liked the marshmallow painting. It added some extra fun to this activity for sure:)
Karen @ PreKinders December 20, 2011 at 10:06 am - Reply

Great ideas! You’ve just given me an idea for January’s prop box play – hot cocoa!
- Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. December 20, 2011 at 8:39 pm - Reply
  
  Yay!! I love prop boxes. That is something I would like to spend more time on putting together but I am afraid that it will have to wait until the summer:)
Suzanne December 20, 2011 at 10:49 am - Reply

What a wonderful idea! The chocolate playdough looks lovely! So much fun!
- Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. December 20, 2011 at 8:40 pm - Reply
  
  It was an interesting change for our play dough table…
andiejaye December 21, 2011 at 10:26 am - Reply

you amazing me, my friend! pinning this one! the hot chocolate playdough is beyond awesomeness!
- Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. December 21, 2011 at 1:50 pm - Reply
  
  And it smells so yummy!
Beth December 22, 2011 at 6:25 am - Reply

This is such a WONDERFUL idea! LOVE it! We will deffinetly by using this during winter! I wanted to invite you to link up any child-friendly ideas at my TGIF Linky Party – http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/search/label/Linkey%20Parties
MerrY Christmas,
Beth =-)
- Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. December 22, 2011 at 7:02 am - Reply
  
  Thank you for the invitation Beth!
Lori December 23, 2011 at 9:40 pm - Reply

I absolutely love the hot cocoa themed play dough. So cute! I’ll have to use that next year mixed with a poem I have comparing hot chocolate to Christ’s birth. I added a link to your post to my website today. Here’s the link in case you want to check it out.

http://mymontessorimoments.com/2011/12/23/hot-cocoa-and-symbols-of-christs-birth/

Thanks for all you do to share your love of early childhood education. You’re such an inspiration!
- Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. December 24, 2011 at 12:52 am - Reply
  
  Thank you Lori – I will be sure to hop on by!