Looking for a fun way to review lessons about the natural world? Kids, with some adult guidance, can make an edible ecosystem or landscape. Connect this art project to a topic kids have been learning in school or even a nature-themed birthday party. If you are doing this craft with more than ten kids, you may want to have work areas with different groups working on a small parts of the finished project. Bring everything together and take lots of pictures of the kids and their creation.
Craft Materials
- You will need three-to-six batches of cake batter, either from a box mix or a homemade recipe.
- Get an assortment of frosting and icing as they create different effects. You should purchase one more can of icing (or make an extra batch) because kids tend to use more than adults think they will!
- You’ll also need an assortment of candies to add decorative details. Before heading to the store, have the kids plan what type of ecosystem they want to create; if they want to make an ocean then there is no need to look for things that will mimic trees or cars.
- Consider gummy bears and other gummy creatures.
- Look for chocolate-shaped vehicles (the foil wrappers add a lot of the details.
- Rock candy and lollipops can become streetlights, stained glass windows, etc.
- Licorice ropes are perfect for mimicking rope, strings, or street wires.
- Soft caramels, Starburst brand candies, and Tootsie Roll candies are soft and can be shaped like clay into whatever you want.
- Graham crackers and other cookies are good for building walls. Ice cream cones, pointed or flat-bottomed, can be decorated with frosting to form buildings, mesas, trees, and other three-dimensional structures.
- Coconut can be dyed with food coloring to form grass, water, dirt or snow.
- Food coloring and a new paint brush allows kids to add small decorations.
- Provide plastic spoons, forks, knives, toothpicks, wood skewers, and other tools that can shape the project.
Plan an Art Project Landscape
Although supplying an assortment of materials is important for creativity, it can be expensive to buy lots of candy. If you are doing this project as part of a birthday party, tie the landscape or ecosystem to the theme of the party – kids can make an ocean for an ocean-themed party or create a forest floor with dirt and worms for an insect-themed kids’ party.
You can also direct kids to create an ecosystem they have been studying in school or in a homeschool class. Whatever the topic, it will help you plan the supplies you need to get. Are kids making a mountain, a volcano, or an imaginary world from a book or a movie?
Adults should keep in mind that whatever supplies you provide the kids will use in their creation. If you want to control how quickly supplies get used, set candy in paper bowls that you can refill.
Edible Arts and Crafts
Before starting the project with the kids, the adult should bake the cakes. Flat pans are perfect for level landscapes that you will build upon. Angel food cake pans form cakes that can be used for mountains or cut in half for cliffs or hillsides. You can also bake the cake like cookies or pancakes so you have very thin layers. Keep in mind, that the cakes can be cut to shape and “glued” together with frosting.
Work the cake on a piece of plywood or sturdy cardboard that has been covered with freezer paper, waxed paper, or brown craft paper. Establish the basic shape of the landscape before the kids start decorating. The cakes shouldn’t be moved to avoid breakage.
Before getting kids started (and away from the visual distraction of the cake and candy), remind kids what they are creating. You may want to give them some time to brainstorm which child will work on different aspects of the landscape. Then, give each child a supply of frosting and access to candy that they can use to decorate the edible ecosystem.
Making an edible ecosystem or landscape requires that kids do planning and work cooperatively as a small group. They also get to review what they know about the natural world. Of course, they won’t think of all these educational benefits … they’ll be more interested in eating the finished product!
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