Eco- Friendly Reindeer Food

We were having a slow weekend but one that had plenty of jobs needing doing.  So to make up for being busy parents in the house I wanted to entertain the children with a simple but fulfilling festive activity.

I then realised with a week to go to the big day edible reindeer food would be great for the local wildlife and Santa’s reindeer on Christmas Eve.  Not wanting to make reindeer food with glitter or any other non edible Christmas decorations that could harm the wildlife or get into the local eco-system, I set about inventing an edible, eco friendly recipe.

I went through our pantry and found lots of half opened bags of store cupboard ingredients that would be ideal for wildlife.  I emptied them all into smaller bowls and then gave them small scoops, teaspoons and measuring cups to decant these food items into their own bigger bowls.

We used

• Oats, muesli, and Oatmeal

• You could also desiccated coconut, nuts,seeds and mixed dried fruit.
• Christmas baking edible sugar sprinkles to give it that magical touch to it, as a replacement for glitter.

They spent a really long time, much to my surprise, spooning bits out of all the bowls and mixing their very own unique recipe.  When they were finally happy with their recipes, we made brown paper funnels to decant the mixture into glass jars.  They then carefully (and much to their delight) got to fill their own jars up.  Then with some brown twine wrapped around the lid they carried their own jars outside to sprinkle.  We extended our play by going on a woodland walk and finding a spot to sprinkle our food.  We also have some left over for all the reindeer visiting us on Christmas Eve.

I hope you get to make this recipe over Christmas, as it’s not only helpful to wildlife in the Winter but it’s also a really good educational activity to help with early years goals such as measuring, space, and fine motor skills.

See this post for more Christmas activities