If you're looking for simple or low prep ways to keep the kids busy or entertained, then look no further than your own kitchen.
Seriously, grab some muffin tins because they are extremely versatile to play with. You can pair them with other materials that you likely already have on hand and create opportunities to work on fine motor skills, sorting skills, imaginative play, scissor skills, imaginative play, and so much more!
Below you will find 8 fun and easy muffin tin activities for kids. Most require little to no set up too, which is always a plus.
A version of this post originally appeared on the CBC Parents website.
What You'll Need for these Muffin Tin Activities
Depending on which of the activities you will be trying below, there will be extra materials required, but we'll obviously need muffin tins to get us started. We used the following:
You could certainly use a smaller muffin tin, such as a 6 cup one, if that's what you have on hand. However, you might be more limited in what activities you can do.
1. Pom Pom Sorting & Patterning Activity
For this activity, you will need:
- Giant pom poms in various colors - They fit perfectly in the cups of the mini muffin trays!
Simply create a pattern in a row or column on the muffin tray using different colored pom poms. Then encourage your child to copy the pattern in the following rows/columns. Your child could also create the initial pattern themselves.
Other variations of this activity to try:
- For young toddlers or babies, try using ball pit balls and regular sized muffin tins instead of the mini muffin tray and giant pom poms.
- Use a regular muffin tin and sort the pom poms by color into the different cups (e.g., all yellow ones go in one cup, orange in another, etc.). For set up, you could put one color of pom pom in each cup or use a label cupcake liners with the color name or color it to match the pom pom colors.
- Label the bottom of each muffin cup using a dry erase marker (or label a cupcake liner) with a number and encourage your child to count out the corresponding number of pom poms into that cup.
- Add measuring spoons, tablespoons, tongs, or tweezers to target fine motor skills and use those tools to transfer the pom poms into the muffin cups.
2. Cupcake Pretend Play
Another fun idea is to combine pretend play with some sensory play and make cupcakes. Here's what you'll need for this activity:
- Muffin tins - I find that the 6 cup regular sized muffin trays work best here.
- Cupcake liners (optional)
- Loose parts for decorating: buttons, glass stones, ribbons, beads, or similar
Let your kids make and decorate their own cupcakes by placing kinetic sand or play dough into the different cups. Then decorate them with loose parts and birthday candles.
My youngest really enjoys using kinetic sand and candles to make his cupcakes (see below). Read more on that activity here.
3. Muffin Tin Geoboard
My kids absolutely loved the time that I showed them how to use the muffin tin upside down as a geoboard (see here). It's such a simple activity to set up too. Here's what you'll need:
- 24 cup mini muffin tin, flipped upside down
Then all your kids need to do is stretch the rubber bands to make shapes.
This muffin tin activity is a great way to work on fine motor skills, hand strength, and shapes. You can really see that in action here.
4. Print Making with Muffin Tins
Feeling crafty? Here's what you'll need for this activity:
- Muffin tins
- Paint brush - To add the paint to the bottom of the muffin tins
- Large sheet of craft paper - It needs to be big enough to fit the muffin tins.
You could either dip the muffin tins into a tray of paint or paint the bottom of the tins using a paint brush. Then you simply stamp the muffin tin onto paper to make your prints.
5. Tape Weaving on Muffin Tins
This activity is all about developing fine motor skills, as well as scissor skills. You'll need:
- 24 cup mini muffin tin, flipped upside down
- Scissors
Encourage your kids to cut strips of tape to fit the rows and columns of the muffin tin. Then have them weave the tape over and under. They'll have to peel and unpeel number of times to make this happen, but it's something the kids easily enjoyed.
My youngest really enjoyed this muffin tin activity. Mind you, anything that uses tape and/or scissors will always appeal to him.
As a variation, you could tape pieces of string or ribbon down at one end. Then try weaving the strings/ribbons.
6. Muffin Tin Telephone Activity
Want to teach your kids some basic life skills like dialing a telephone or learning your home phone number? Then this activity is for you. You'll need:
- 12 cup regular sized muffin tin, flipped upside down
On the bottom of the muffin tin tray, label the cups with the numbers 0-9, just like a telephone.
Then encourage your kids to practice dialing important phone numbers (e.g., mom or dad's, grandma or grandpa's). You could also grab a phone book and let your kids pick random phone numbers to practice dialing.
7. DIY Muffin Tin Matching Game
Another idea is to create a custom matching game. For this activity, you will need:
- Items in pairs or that go together in some way (e.g., uppercase and lowercase letters) - You could use letter magnets, small items like pom poms or buttons, LEGO bricks, wooden or felt shapes, small figures, etc.
Place the muffin tin vertically and put one item from your pair in a cup on the left most column and its partner item in a cup in the right most column.
For example, you could put an uppercase letter B in a cup on the left side and a lowercase letter b in a cup on the right side. Or you could put a dice showing 4 dots in the left most column and a number 4 fridge magnet in the right most column. You could put a large green pom pom in the left column and another large green pom pom in the right column. There are lots of possibilities here so feel free to get creative!
Then your child can use tape to connect the two items from the two different columns.
8. Object Sorting with Muffin Tins
You can use muffin tins to work on sorting skills. For example, you could sort objects by shapes, sizes, colors, etc.
In this particular example activity, we used:
- Colorful wooden shapes (or pattern blocks) in various sizes and colors - We found these at Dollarama.
To set this activity up, I placed one of each kind of wooden shape into a different cup. Then my youngest son sorted the remaining wooden shapes into the correct cups.
Not sure what to sort? Here are some ideas to try:
- Buttons
- Coins
- LEGO bricks or pieces
- Mini erasers
- Pom poms
- Foam shapes
- Letters or numbers
- Glass stones/gems of various colors
- Hair ties or rubber bands
- Beads
- Crayons
- Lids from food pouches, milk jugs, pop bottles, etc.
- Shells
- Dry pasta of various shapes
- Paper clips
- Wooden shapes or pattern blocks
While there are lots of different ways to play and learn with muffin tins, I hope these 8 muffin tin activities were enough to get you inspired. Which activity are you going to try first?
