Sweet Shop Tuff Spot

Hands up if your children like sweets? Yes, I thought so! My children’s eyes light up with joy at the sight of a sweet shop so I thought I would try and recreate the fun but with none of the sugar. 

This might look elaborate but I promise you it’s not. It was really easy to set up and I used things that I all ready had in the house. You do not need to go out and buy these things, just use what you already have in the house. 

For the sweets I raided my craft drawer and found lots of inspiration. So I used some coloured Pom poms, dried pasta, coloured match sticks, cotton wool, gems, bottle lids, coloured sticks, feathers, pipe cleaners and some straws.

If you do not have these perhaps you could use buttons, scrunched up tissue paper, oats, marbles, beads or small balls/items from board games such as frustration counters. Just have a look around the house and I’m sure you will find lots. 

I then placed our sweets in our Ikea bowls and cups. I love using these utensils as they are so bright and colourful and they are very resilient. I then added some pick & mix bags and some sweet cups that I had saved from previous uses. I actually asked at a sweet shop if I could buy some bags from them and they kindly let me have them. I also added some tongs and scoops. Again if you don’t have these then just use normal teaspoons or perhaps some pegs as tongs?  I added our play till as an extra element of role play but it’s not essential if you don’t have one. 

Then we were ready to play sweet shops! Oliver (4) had a great time scooping and tweezing. All this playing is great for building up strength in his hands before starting school in September. 

I also made a point of asking him if I could have a specific number of a particular sweet. Just an extra learning opportunity but not essential. You could include colour, shape, size opportunities but the most important thing is to just have fun. 

To receive our blog posts, latest news and offers straight into your inbox please click here to sign up to our newsletter.