Real talk: We LOVE Dunkin Donuts. Don't get me wrong, we are usually all about
REAL food and cutting out processed food. But donuts are our weakness. We usually stop at Dunkin Donuts after church each week for bribery donuts for the girls and celebratory coffee and donuts for us because we survived mass with two little ones. I had an idea a few months ago to start saving our coffee cups and donut boxes so I could create a
donut shop dramatic play area for our girls.
To set up our donut shop, I first cleared out all of the food and cooking supplies that we normally keep in our play kitchen. You can find our
play kitchen HERE. We have had this since my oldest was probably one or two and it is one of our most used toys at our house. We've changed it to a restaurant and a store over the years but my girls love playing with it and it is usually the first toy visiting children gravitate toward.
I hung up menus and then put up a label for all of the items in the shop. Our girls can't read yet but my oldest is very interested in 'how do you spell that' and 'what letter does that start with' so I thought it would be important to have key vocabulary words in our donut shop. I also bought an
inexpensive cash register that you can find here. Of all the toys we have, we didn't have a cash register. I think my girls might have been most excited about this addition to our dramatic play area.
You could probably ask your favorite donut/coffee shop to donate cups, napkins, boxes, straws, lids, etc., but we just collected them over the course of a few months and then washed and dried them.
To make the donuts, I was planning on creating them out of felt. This is probably the number one reason I delayed setting this activity up. Even with plans to have my
Silhouette Cameo cut out the circles, it was still overwhelming to think about making them. Then
Jen from Teaching in the Tongass, posted an idea on Instagram that changed this project completely. She figured out that you could print out clip art on iron on transfer paper (
this is the kind that I used) and then iron it onto felt. Then you just cut around the clip art and you have a felt board set that is SUPER cute. I tried it and just followed the directions that came with the
Iron on Transfer Paper and it seriously couldn't have been easier. Plus it turned out way cuter than if I had tried to make them myself. Now I have so many ideas for felt projects!!
I took a felt board that we already had (I made it with felt and a canvas frame and a staple gun) and put the donuts on it. That would serve as our shelves of donuts.
Seriously, how cute are those donuts in that little donut box??
The girls were so excited to play donut shop that they were in complete motion as I attempted to take pictures of them exploring our new dramatic play area for the first time. I think this was a complete win in their book!
