Play Food Matching Game {Learning Resources Review & Giveaway}

We love sharing learning activities and awesome kids products with you. A little while ago we were invited to try out some of the new 2013 products from Learning Resources. One item we were sent to try out was the New Sprouts® Dinner Basket.

Today I'm going to tell you a little bit about the adorable dinner basket and then share a simple learning activity we created that helped us practice matching and counting using our fun new toy from Learning Resources. 

Make sure to scroll down and enter our New Sprouts® Dinner Basket giveaway too!

First off... the photo above shows what comes in the New Sprouts® Dinner Basket. The package was ripped apart the second it arrived and the kiddos started playing immediately.

There were 17 play food items included inside the dinner basket... a glass of milk, steak, grilled chicken breast, asparagus bundle, baked potato, broccoli, corn, empty bowl, 3 lettuce leaves, 2 tomato slices, 2 cucumber slices, pineapple ring and ice cream sandwich.

I loved that all of the food items fit inside the basket. This makes cleaning them up really easy. I also loved that the play food was made of soft, durable plastic. Typically we have either super cheap plastic play food at our house or wooden play food. The cheap plastic stuff gets damaged and thrown out quite often. Over the past month as we have played with this dinner basket and the play food items I have been so impressed with how well these ones from Learning Resources have held up! My kids take the pieces everywhere, the baby has tried to use them for teething, and they still look brand new! 

Previously I have only kept wooden play food pieces, but after trying these ones and finding them to be such high quality, I would totally buy more. In fact I kind of wish I had a classroom so I could justify buying this New Sprouts® Classroom Play Food Set. I also love the New Sprouts® Fresh Picked Fruit & Veggie Tote.

Since my daughter has been loving the dinner set so much, I decided to use it to create a simple play food matching game for us to play together. 

The first thing we did was create a set of play food cards. I started by asking her for a specific number of foods between 1-5 (for example, "Catie can you give me 3 things to eat?"). Once she gave me the foods, I drew their pictures on a card and then put them aside. Pictures don't have to be anything fancy. Once each item was added to a card we started the matching game!

Next I handed her the dinner basket and had her pick a shopping card or visual "list."

She took the list and headed over to where the play food items were on the table and had to go "shopping."

As she found each item on her card, she added it to her basket. Once all of the items were in the basket, she brought it back to me and we matched the items up to the card to see if she got everything she needed! 

We practiced counting, we talked about colors, shapes, and sizes... and she learned a few new vocabulary words too!

Do your kids have loads of play food? Another fun way to use it would be to host your own play food fancy feast or create a grocery store.

If you want to check out more from Learning Resources you can find them on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter... or scroll through their catalog on their website.

Today I am excited to give one Toddler Approved reader the opportunity to win their own New Sprouts® Dinner Basket.

Learning Resources Dinner Basket Giveaway

Giveaway Entry Requirements:

• Make sure to fill in the rafflecopter giveaway entry below and complete the mandatory email entry.
• You can get up to eight entries by completing all eight tasks mentioned in the rafflecopter form below.

Entry Guidelines:

• This giveaway is open for entry from Monday, September 30th to Sunday, October 6th at 12:00am (PST)
• The winning entry will be drawn on Sunday, October 6th. I will notify the winner via email.
• The winner will need to reply to me within 72 hours of my email. If there is no response, a new winner will be drawn.
• See our Official Giveaway Rules for complete guidelines. US Residents only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: This review and giveaway are sponsored by Learning Resources. I was sent a free dinner set to review and share. All opinions in this post are mine!