Another idea is to mold individual meat loaves into bear, turtle or other shapes.

Boys between 8 and say 14 might appreciate things like the following.....and I have lots more....I have 6 grandsons!!

GREEN SLIME
10 oz Frozen Spinach, Thawed
4 oz Cream Cheese
1/2 c Sour Cream
1/3 c Mild Salsa
2 Green Onions, Chopped
1 Garlic Clove, minced
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
Drain spinach; squeeze dry. In food processor, pure spinach, cheese, sour cream, salsa, onions, garlic,
salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or until thickened slightly. Let stand at room
temperature for 30 minutes.
Serve with Skeleton Bread
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SKELETON BREAD
1/2 pkg Frozen Bread Dough (1/2 of 1lb pkg (8oz)
1 ea Egg, Beaten
1 tbsp Water
1 tbsp Poppy Seeds
Thaw and let bread rise according to manufacturer's instructions. Punch down dough; divide in half. Set 1 half aside.
Cut remaining half into thirds. With 1 of the thirds, form head shaped like a light bulb. With scissors, cut eyes, nose and mouth. Place heat at end of greased 17x11-inch rimmed baking sheet. Shape second third into 3-inch long triangle; place, point down, below heat to form body. Divide remaining third of dough into 7 pieces; roll into sausages. Arrange 3 on each side of upper body for ribs. Use remaining piece for neck.
Halve reserved dough. With 1 half, make 4 logs for upper and lower legs; attach to body. With two-thirds of the remaining dough, make 4 logs for upper and lower arms; attach at shoulders.
With remaining dough, make 2 small and 2 large triangles for hands and feet. With scissors, make 4 cuts at broad ends of triangles for fingers and toes; attach to arms and legs. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.
Whisk egg with water; brush some over joints, pressing to seal. Brush entire skeleton with remaining egg wash; sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake in 375F 190C oven for about 15 minutes or until golden.

Aquarium Jello
Goldfish Bowl
Red hots or Jelly Belly Gravel Beans (looks like rocks)
Blue Jello
Ice cubes
Cold water
Purple endive
parsley sprigs
gummy fish
for Toxic Aquarium use:
Plastic people
Life Savers (dark ones)
Orange Jello
Use a new or clean gold fish bowl. In the bottom, use red hot or Jelly Belly gravel beans. Mix up as much blue jello and the bowl will hold. Mix using ice cubes and cold water instead of just cold water as called for on the box. Pour this into the bowl over a knife blade or something to keep from disturbing the gravel. If you want it to have seaweed, poke in a couple of purple endive or something similiar down in the gravel. When the whole thing starts to jell, use a wooden skewer to push gummy fish into different parts of the bowl. You can even place a plastic diver man.
To make a Toxic Aquarium. Mix orange and blue jello to get a sickly shade of green. Lifesavers make old tires and you can toss in other junky things for trash on the bottom of the sea. Something barrel-shaped for that illegally dumped toxic waste. Float your fish upsidedown on top, and add a plastic skeleton or two.

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Next to the already mentionend "familyfun" there are some more websites:

family.go.com - I can especially recommend the "potato mice" and the "peanut butter bears".

I also tried out "Tie Dye Tortilla Chips" - really funny.

Also I think it is great to give the kids the possibility to try something out - I mean without recipy. For example, to give them a table with all kinds of ingredients and to ask them to arrange something together and try it out. Or if you think that's to risky (bad taste or depending on the number of kids maybe to chaotic) then you could bake cookies and let everyone design their personal cookie with eatable pearls, chocolate crumbles, sugar icing or whatever.

For snack you could also make "real chips" by yourself, you just need potatoes, cut them and fry them. Also with this idea every kid could take an amount of chips and put the spices on it they like (sugar, pepper, paprika...).

Have fun!

heather - those potato mice are adorable. I know they will eat the potatoes. We will probably do the bears too.

ruthana - Cookie cutters and jello is something even the 2 year old can do. Thanks for the idea.

jessica - thanks for the heads up on the bento molds. I didn't even know they made those.

The kids will absolutely go nuts with it.

dcarch

Jim

Cook hot dogs in minutes.

dcarch

It's just equal parts creamy peanut butter and honey mixed with enough dry milk to make it the consistency of play dough. Put out small things to decorate: mini choc. chips, mini m&ms, coconut, raisins, little cake decorations, pretzel pieces, sunflower seeds...whatever.

Building bugs, caterpillars and snakes and then eating them was the most popular.

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Easter Bunny - Made with Braided Bread dough

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Potato Head - Use Cooked Potato carrots , candy , etc.

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You can make other animals, like Crab Cakes, Snakes,
alligators, etc.
If you need recipes I can put them in.
LOU

-Grainlady

lou - thanks for the ideas, those were really cute.

katiec - thanks for the playdough recipe--that's a great idea.

coconut - I'm trying to decide if I want to deal with painting messes. The ages are 2, 2 1/2, 3, 6 & 7. They would probably love it though. Maybe they could paint at the kids picnic table in the garage. :)

grainlady - thanks for the link--looks like a lot of great ideas.

Thanks so much everyone--lots of great ideas.