Tag Archives: marshmallow

Building with Marshmallows

Buddy talked me into buying a bag of jumbo marshmallows when we were purchasing candy for our gingerbread houses. And of course, he only used one, which meant I needed other ideas for marshmallows. First, we painted with the marshmallows, and that was a lot of fun. (Read more about that activity here.) But once that was done, we needed something else to do with all of our leftover marshmallows.

I found the idea for building with jumbo marshmallows from Kids Activities Blog. After pulling out some marshmallows and straws, I cut the straws into different sized pieces. I cut them at an angle so there was a sharp point to pierce the marshmallow at each end. Once I did that, I brought Buddy over, and I showed him how to stick the straws into the marshmallows.

Buddy started by making a square. Then he filled it up with all of the rest of the marshmallows. He had a pretty good stack in there before they started falling over.

After that, I showed Buddy how to make a building. We worked together to build a triangular pyramid shaped building together. Then, we tried to make a cube. It was a little tricky for Buddy to build on his own, so he preferred making two dimensional shapes.

This was a fun and easy activity that could be done at many different ages. Preschoolers like Buddy may be better off working on two dimensional shapes, and older kids should be able to build three dimensional ones. I’d like to do this activity again when Buddy’s a little older to see what he can do.

Do you have any other ideas for using up marshmallows? Please share in the comments if you do.

Christmas Marshmallow Painting

Buddy and I have been having a lot of fun doing Christmas activities this week. Our first activity was making a gingerbread train, and when we bought the candy, Buddy begged me to buy jumbo marshmallows. He promised me he’d use them on his train, and he then he only used one. So when we finished and had a full bag of marshmallows left over, I realized I needed to find something else to do with them. Buddy heard me comment about finding a marshmallow activity, and he specifically asked to paint with them. And that’s how we came up with Christmas marshmallow painting. 

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I grabbed a piece of painting paper from our paint pad, and I drew a large triangle. Then I grabbed our Crayola washable paints, and put some colors on a paper plate. Finally, I pulled out a few jumbo marshmallows and Q-tips to use as paint brushes, and I found Buddy’s painting smock. 

Buddy was so excited to start painting with the marshmallows. I showed him how to stamp with the marshmallow, and I told him to stay inside of the triangle to make the tree. He did a great job of very carefully covering the area of the triangle with green paint. 

Once he had finished the tree, Buddy got a new marshmallow to make the trunk. I told him to make straight lines down to make the trunk. 

After Buddy made the tree, I did a new plate of paint with colors for lights and ornaments. He did one large marshmallow yellow stamp to be a star at the top. The rest were small dots made with Q-tips. We couldn’t decide if they were Christmas lights or ornaments. Buddy said they were both. 

Buddy had so much fun with this activity, he asked to do it again the following day! So I cut up the painting paper, and we made Christmas cards. This was such a simple idea, and it was so easy to clean up! I just threw away the marshmallows, Q-tips, and paper plates, and it was done.  I’m sure we will be doing marshmallow paintings again soon.