More than 35 activities and ideas that inspire children to explore the world around them.

An important part of childhood is being curious and trying out new experiences. What do things taste, feel, smell, sound like? What happens when you add red to blue, mix earth with water, or drop a blob of paint from a great height? These childhood experiments are vital for development and provide hours of entertainment.

Recipes for Play contains easy and inexpensive ideas for engaging your child’s senses. Many wonderful hours can be spent playing with natural ingredients found in your kitchen cupboard or backyard garden. Make your own face paint in minutes, whip up a batch of oozy slime, create clouds of color with rainbow rice, and so much more.

Sisters Rachel Sumner and Ruth Mitchener have created Recipes for Play for parents and teachers—or anyone with a child in their life—who want to encourage tactile learning but don’t want their lives to be controlled by chaos. Each recipe has easy-to-follow instructions for setting up activities and simple steps for cleaning up once the fun is finished.

Rachel Sumner is a book reviewer for The Australian Women’s Weekly. She previously worked as a children’s book sales rep for Beattie And Forbes Booksellers in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Her writing has also appeared in the Marlborough Express. She lives in Auckland with her two wonderful girls and a ginger cat called Ginger.