Loose Part Play: Dried Oranges, Pinecones & Coasters

The girls love having new play ingredients to use in their kitchen, and these loose parts fitted the bill perfectly. I originally made these intending them to become a christmas table centrepiece and wreath and so I didn't really want them played with and damaged. But Poppet must have really liked the dried orange slices as I would keep finding them missing from the bowl, and usually fed to her dinosaurs. She is being very attentive to her dinosaurs as of late, perhaps due to Dinovember that we are currently participating in! (blog post to follow!)

We collected our pine cone collection from the garden and laid them out on a baking tray. They were mostly all closed up, but after an hour or so on a very low heat in the oven they all opened up and are happily now free from all insects which is always good. I sliced up a couple of oranges into 1cm pieces and laid them out on a wire rack (apparently better than a baking tray as it helps prevent them sticking) and baked them at the same time until they had all dried out.

After a couple of days of Poppet stealing the orange slices I gave in and set up an invitation to play using them. I went for a natural theme with a wooden placemat, wood-effect coasters, a bowl of dried oranges and a bowl of pinecones (I was sticking to the Magic Three Formula of loose part play).

My pictures of them playing with them were mostly blurred so I only have one here, but I can vouch that those oranges got a lot of playtime! They did not touch the pinecones at all (have had some up on the windowsill all month so these are no novelty) but the orange slices were cooked, and served up, and cooked, and served up, time and time again. The coasters became little serving platters that Poppet would arrange the oranges on and then hand out to me, or to her little sister.

I will give you one guess as to what Little did with the oranges! Even Poppet had a little experimental nibble. I have now managed to rescue all of my precious oranges slices and have them up out of the way until we can try our hand at making some decorations in the not too distant future!

Poppet: 2yrs 10mos

Little: 1yr 1mos