Using food in play

Using food in Montessori play there’s a few schools of thought around this topic originally when Montessori was starting out she was working with orphans who didn’t have a lot of food and so the food they had was very much for eating so there are some people on the Montessori spectrum who still feel this way that you should role model food as food only and not used in play now in the modern world often Montessori nurseries or Montessori activities will use dry food such as lentils pasta rice to complement the activity or to alter or extend an activity for the children and I have my feelings on this I think it’s okay to use small amounts of food such as a little jug of rice for pouring or a little bowl of pasta dry pasta for transferring what I don’t feel as comfortable with is using a tough tray full of different coloured rice and different coloured pastas and you know a huge tray full of food that actually then wouldn’t be safe for consumption and therefore wouldn’t get eaten and that’s just my personal opinion that I never did that as a man I haven’t done that in a nursery setting it feels a bit wasteful to use so much food then won’t be eaten however as a parent use your judgement see how you feel about it decide would you like to try using food in your activities to see how it goes the benefits of using food dry food is it if your little one was to put it in their mouth or swallow it harms gonna come from a dry grain of rice so you can feel kind of safe in the knowledge that your little one could play and actually you wouldn’t have to interfere with airplay to stop them from putting it in their mouth if they did put it in their mouth and you could colour the food with food safe dies and that could be another option too tweak or adjust an activity to make it more appealing to your little one so my modern feelings about food in play are use it occasionally use it sparingly however it is your choice and if it suits your family to offer sensory bins or tough tray examples with food and that’s the cheapest easiest accessible medium you have then go for it and I hope you have lots of fun using it if you don’t feel comfortable that it is plenty of other ideas and eco-King peanuts for example make a really good tree filler and they’re safe for consumption as well they kind of just dissolve in water and you could also use cotton wool or pom-poms or lots of other things and big beads or you’d have to make a judgement call on the size of activity size of material you are using based on your child’s age and likelihood of putting it in their mouth and swallow it for example say food in Montessori play food for thought he