• They can safely eat the raw ingredients
• It’s relatively healthy
• It’s only 3 ingredients and you probably have them on hand

With this recipe, I can take a step back and let the children do most of the steps independently and everybody's happy.

Enjoy :)

Banana Oat Cookies

Ingredients:

1 ripe banana
⅝ cup of rolled oats (½ cup + ⅛ cup)
1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips (or anything else you have around the house, i.e. raisins, nuts)

Optional:
2 tsp. of honey
¼ cup of unsweetened, shredded coconut

Tip:  Measure the ingredients ahead of toy and have them in separate bowls for easy dumping/transferring.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Wash your hands with your little ones.
3. Encourage your child to peel the banana. Put the peel aside and place the peeled banana in the mixing bowl.
4. Demonstrate how to use the masher to mash the banana and encourage your child to continue until the banana is fully mashed.
5. Encourage your child to pour/dump the oats, honey, coconut and chocolate chips into the mixing bowl.
6. Demonstrate how to use a wooden spoon and encourage your child to stir until all the ingredients are combined. (You may need to hold the bowl so they can hold the spoon with both hands).
7. Take a small handful of the cookie batter and demonstrate how to shape it into a ball.
8. Place it on the baking sheet.
9. Work with your child to shape the rest of the cookie batter, spacing them approx. 2 inches apart.
10. Put them in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
11. Let them cool and enjoy! Store in an airtight container.

Toddler Kitchen Tools we used available at the Montessori Room:

• Learning Tower (mine and my child's favourite kitchen tool!)
• Potato Masher
• Rainbow Fraction® Measuring Cups