Each year the date for Pancake Day changes but is always 47 days before Easter Sunday. In 2023, it is Tuesday 21st February.
Pancake Day is also called Shrove Tuesday and is traditionally the day before Lent starts in the Christian calendar. It is the day when certain foods are used up in the house before Lent starts and those foods are given up. These foods are usually eggs, milk and sugar which just happen to be ingredients for pancakes.
I have compiled a list of themed activities which you can do with your toddlers and young children.
1. Make Cardboard Pancakes
Cut a cardboard frying pan out and let your little one paint it. Then, get a paper circle and let them finger paint chocolate chips onto it. Stick this onto the frying pan and you have a pancake which they can play with.
2. Make Playdough Pancakes
Provide a play saucepan and some yellow-ish playdough. Let your child add different “toppings” to their pancake. They could also use rolling pins and cookie cutters to make different shaped pancakes.
Toppings could be pipe cleaners cut into shorter sticks, blue pom-poms for blueberries and red pom-poms for strawberries.
3. Make Real Pancakes
Make real pancakes with your little one. Measuring out the ingredients, cracking the eggs and squeezing the lemons. This is great for practising numbers and great for fine motor skills.
4. Cardboard Pancake Counting
Cut out cardboard pancakes from thick cardboard (used parcel boxes are perfect). Draw numbers up to 10 on some and dots up to 10 on others. It can then be used as a matching game and they can play with the pancakes in their toy kitchen, if you have one.
5. Read Some Pancake Themed Books
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