An open teal The Play Way box with the Feeding and Mealtimes Play Kit contents arranged above it: grey silicone divider plates, bowls and a cutlery set, a Food Investigator placemat, food memory cards, food creation cards, sensory play cards, a Let's Eat The Rainbow book, a stainless compartment dish, two pairs of tongs, coloured food picks, a rainbow pop it, a wooden knife and a wavy cutter, and a green Feeding and mealtimes guide.
A toddler in a white t-shirt slices strawberries on a wooden board with a green-handled crinkle cutter, while an older child in a mustard top leans on the bench beside them. One cube of orange fruit and one small piece of broccoli sit on the benchtop, with a white bowl of more orange cubes in the foreground.
An adult and a child in a mustard top sit side by side at an outdoor table with the Food Investigator placemat between them, and a third person's hand and forearm reach in from the left edge of the frame. A divided plate on the table holds cut watermelon, strawberry, apple and yellow fruit chunks around a whole orange, with a banana beside it.
A child in a mustard jumper watches a video on a tablet propped on a stand at a table, with an adult smiling behind them and a teal suction bowl within reach.
An adult opens a flat cardboard box on a kitchen bench while two children reach in to lift out a wooden board and a teal plate.
Two small hands lift a printed Food memory cards lid off a blue box on a white tabletop. The lid is illustrated with cherries, peas, pancakes and kale, and a card in the box below reads bananas.
Two children and an adult sit around a low wooden table on a deck with food memory cards laid face down between them, one child holding up a banana card.
A dark teal silicone divider plate on a white table holds cucumber sticks, carrot sticks and penne pasta, with a child eating from a matching plate in the background.
An open teal The Play Way box with the Feeding and Mealtimes Play Kit contents arranged above it: grey silicone divider plates, bowls and a cutlery set, a Food Investigator placemat, food memory cards, food creation cards, sensory play cards, a Let's Eat The Rainbow book, a stainless compartment dish, two pairs of tongs, coloured food picks, a rainbow pop it, a wooden knife and a wavy cutter, and a green Feeding and mealtimes guide.
A toddler in a white t-shirt slices strawberries on a wooden board with a green-handled crinkle cutter, while an older child in a mustard top leans on the bench beside them. One cube of orange fruit and one small piece of broccoli sit on the benchtop, with a white bowl of more orange cubes in the foreground.
An adult and a child in a mustard top sit side by side at an outdoor table with the Food Investigator placemat between them, and a third person's hand and forearm reach in from the left edge of the frame. A divided plate on the table holds cut watermelon, strawberry, apple and yellow fruit chunks around a whole orange, with a banana beside it.
A child in a mustard jumper watches a video on a tablet propped on a stand at a table, with an adult smiling behind them and a teal suction bowl within reach.
An adult opens a flat cardboard box on a kitchen bench while two children reach in to lift out a wooden board and a teal plate.
Two small hands lift a printed Food memory cards lid off a blue box on a white tabletop. The lid is illustrated with cherries, peas, pancakes and kale, and a card in the box below reads bananas.
Two children and an adult sit around a low wooden table on a deck with food memory cards laid face down between them, one child holding up a banana card.
A dark teal silicone divider plate on a white table holds cucumber sticks, carrot sticks and penne pasta, with a child eating from a matching plate in the background.
An open teal The Play Way box with the Feeding and Mealtimes Play Kit contents arranged above it: grey silicone divider plates, bowls and a cutlery set, a Food Investigator placemat, food memory cards, food creation cards, sensory play cards, a Let's Eat The Rainbow book, a stainless compartment dish, two pairs of tongs, coloured food picks, a rainbow pop it, a wooden knife and a wavy cutter, and a green Feeding and mealtimes guide.
A toddler in a white t-shirt slices strawberries on a wooden board with a green-handled crinkle cutter, while an older child in a mustard top leans on the bench beside them. One cube of orange fruit and one small piece of broccoli sit on the benchtop, with a white bowl of more orange cubes in the foreground.
An adult and a child in a mustard top sit side by side at an outdoor table with the Food Investigator placemat between them, and a third person's hand and forearm reach in from the left edge of the frame. A divided plate on the table holds cut watermelon, strawberry, apple and yellow fruit chunks around a whole orange, with a banana beside it.
A child in a mustard jumper watches a video on a tablet propped on a stand at a table, with an adult smiling behind them and a teal suction bowl within reach.
An adult opens a flat cardboard box on a kitchen bench while two children reach in to lift out a wooden board and a teal plate.
Two small hands lift a printed Food memory cards lid off a blue box on a white tabletop. The lid is illustrated with cherries, peas, pancakes and kale, and a card in the box below reads bananas.
Two children and an adult sit around a low wooden table on a deck with food memory cards laid face down between them, one child holding up a banana card.
A dark teal silicone divider plate on a white table holds cucumber sticks, carrot sticks and penne pasta, with a child eating from a matching plate in the background.
An open teal The Play Way box with the Feeding and Mealtimes Play Kit contents arranged above it: grey silicone divider plates, bowls and a cutlery set, a Food Investigator placemat, food memory cards, food creation cards, sensory play cards, a Let's Eat The Rainbow book, a stainless compartment dish, two pairs of tongs, coloured food picks, a rainbow pop it, a wooden knife and a wavy cutter, and a green Feeding and mealtimes guide.
A toddler in a white t-shirt slices strawberries on a wooden board with a green-handled crinkle cutter, while an older child in a mustard top leans on the bench beside them. One cube of orange fruit and one small piece of broccoli sit on the benchtop, with a white bowl of more orange cubes in the foreground.
An adult and a child in a mustard top sit side by side at an outdoor table with the Food Investigator placemat between them, and a third person's hand and forearm reach in from the left edge of the frame. A divided plate on the table holds cut watermelon, strawberry, apple and yellow fruit chunks around a whole orange, with a banana beside it.
A child in a mustard jumper watches a video on a tablet propped on a stand at a table, with an adult smiling behind them and a teal suction bowl within reach.
An adult opens a flat cardboard box on a kitchen bench while two children reach in to lift out a wooden board and a teal plate.
Two small hands lift a printed Food memory cards lid off a blue box on a white tabletop. The lid is illustrated with cherries, peas, pancakes and kale, and a card in the box below reads bananas.
Two children and an adult sit around a low wooden table on a deck with food memory cards laid face down between them, one child holding up a banana card.
A dark teal silicone divider plate on a white table holds cucumber sticks, carrot sticks and penne pasta, with a child eating from a matching plate in the background.

Feeding and Mealtimes Play Kit

The Play Way
Regular price $197.00
Sale price $197.00 Regular price $0.00
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Support your child to get comfortable around food, with ten tools that let them look at it, name it, smell it, cut it up and play with it before anyone asks them to eat any of it, and words to help them communicate with you about food, so you can stop guessing.

Our speech pathologists curated this play kit to start way before we get to sitting at the dinner table and eating a whole meal. Most of what is in this kit happens through play in the kitchen, with the placemat or in sensory play, where taking a bite of food is not the point of it. Start here if your child eats happily from a short list of foods but something new turning up on the plate is enough to end a calm family mealtime for everyone. It will not do the job of a feeding therapist if your child needs one, and the checklists in the box are there so that if you do see one, you walk in with all the data you’ve already collected.
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An open teal The Play Way box with the Feeding and Mealtimes Play Kit contents arranged above it: grey silicone divider plates, bowls and a cutlery set, a Food Investigator placemat, food memory cards, food creation cards, sensory play cards, a Let's Eat The Rainbow book, a stainless compartment dish, two pairs of tongs, coloured food picks, a rainbow pop it, a wooden knife and a wavy cutter, and a green Feeding and mealtimes guide.

Feeding and Mealtimes Play Kit

Regular price $197.00
Sale price $197.00 Regular price $0.00
Unit price

WHAT'S INSIDE

What's in this play kit

A full kit of play-tools, curated to work together.
Tableware Set

Tableware Set

Four silicone divider plates, four suction bowls, four junior tasting spoons and a cutlery set with soft handles. The sections keep a new food from touching the food your child already trusts, and the suction bottoms hold a bowl still while they are still learning to get a spoon out of it. We love the small tasting spoon, because it takes the pressure off.
Food Investigator placemat

Food Investigator placemat

A placemat your child puts a food on and simply explores; from how it looks, smells and feels, to whether they want a taste (or not). It gives them a way to describe a food, so they can put words to what they don’t like about it, instead of just pushing the plate away. It also asks whether they liked it today or might like it tomorrow.
Food Creation Card set

Food Creation Card set

Recipe cards for turning food into a work of art. Animal face toast, pancake art, rainbow fruit sticks, apple donuts. Plus, ways to swap in an ingredient your child already eats. And, if they don’t want to eat what they made, they can make it for somebody else.
Sensory Play Card set

Sensory Play Card set

Cards for messy play, with a ways to play booklet alongside them. To help your child get their hands into a variety of textures and colours and talk about preferences away from the pressure of mealtimes.
Food Memory card set

Food Memory card set

A card set of foods to play memory, snap and go fish with. Your child names bananas, pancakes and peas over and over inside a game they’re interested in playing. This gets them familiar and comfortable with a variety of foods without having to smell, touch or taste them.
'Let's Eat The Rainbow' book

'Let's Eat The Rainbow' book

A picture book of foods sorted by colour, written by our team. It describes what each food is like instead of whether it is good for you, so a fluffy pancake and a crunchy chicken nugget get the same treatment, and your child can get familiar with a food on a page before it appears on their plate.
Chop It cutting set

Chop It cutting set

A wavy veggie cutter and a wooden learning knife. Both have a handle made for a small hand and the wooden one is blunt, so your child can do the cutting up with you beside them. Handling a food is very different to eating it, and for a lot of children that is a much easier place to start.
Pop It

Pop It

An ice-cream shaped pop it, for the freezer. Fill the bubbles with yoghurt or pureed fruit, freeze it, and pop out little frozen drops. A fun way to explore foods they already like with different temperature, shape, size and texture.
Tongs, compartments and sticks

Tongs, compartments and sticks

Large and small tongs, a compartment dish and little coloured food picks. They are for family style meals, where the food goes in the middle of the table and your child gets to choose what lands on which plate and how much. For some children that bit of control is what makes a new food worth a look. The picks are there for the child who would rather not touch it with their hands.
Parent Guide

Parent Guide

A guide for you (the adult), covering what can sit underneath a child's feeding, with checklists on the medical, nutrition and mealtime behaviour aspects to work through and take to an appointment. It also holds a mealtime stress scale to fill in before you start, and a section on food chaining.

Why we built it this way

Nobody is asked to eat anything

Nobody is asked to eat anything

At no point does this kit ask your child to put food in or near their mouth, and that is deliberate. When a child does not feel comfortable swallowing something yet, being encouraged to try can take them backwards. So everything here happens before they take a bite; on a card, on a placemat, on a chopping board, in the coloured rice. Your child can say no at any point and might still be getting more used to what is in front of them.
It is still a learning food

It is still a learning food

When a food gets a yuck, the videos have you answer with, ah, it is still a learning food. When it stinks, with, ah, that one has a big smell. We keep the wording neutral on purpose so that we can come back to it another day and keep exploring curiously.
The scale asks about you too

The scale asks about you too

The mealtime stress scale asks about your child and about you, because what you are carrying as the parent at a meal is part of the picture and hardly anyone asks about that. It also shows you which meals in your week are the calmest ones, and a calm meal is usually where your child has the most room for something new.

INCLUDED WITH YOUR PLAY KIT

The videos that come with it

Everything in the kit is ready to use from the day it arrives, so the placemat can come out with one of the foods your child already eats and you can get investigating straight away. When you want the understanding behind it, there is just over four hours of learning across forty six videos from our therapists. Our speech pathologists start with what can make eating hard for a child in the first place, and then walk through all five projects, from the sensory play and the placemat to the food creations, the family style meal and the book. The activities are filmed with children so your child can follow along and be inspired by peers. Another set of videos covers the mealtime itself, from positioning and drinking through to keeping the food talk going in their normal everyday. We'll send your invitation to access it all when your kit ships.

WHO THIS PLAY KIT IS FOR

If mealtimes look like this

  • The list of foods they will eat keeps getting shorter, and I do not know what to do about it.
  • A new food goes on the plate and the whole meal is over before anyone picks up a fork.
  • We are on a waiting list, and I cannot sit here doing nothing until our name comes up.
If any of that sounds like your family, this is who we built the play kit for.

Who made this

Kait is an OT. She has been working with children and families for nearly 20 years, and she has four kids of her own. Feeding and mealtimes are one of the hardest things for a family to manage when a child is having challenges in this area. So we built this kit for the time between the meals, when nobody is hungry and nobody is upset and there is no pressure to eat something because if they don’t you’re worried they’ll starve. The placemat, the card sets, the book and the guide were all developed by our therapy team, with our speech pathologists on the feeding side of it, so what is in the box and the reasoning behind it are all made to work together and bring as much play as possible to make food fun.
  • 5,000+
    Australian children have used our play kits
  • 20 years
    of Kait working with children and families

Frequently asked questions

What comes in a play kit?

What age is this play kit for?

Do I have to watch the videos?

How do I get to the videos?

How long will it take to arrive?

What if something is not right?

What if there is a medical reason behind what we are seeing?