How to Make a Rice Krispies Edible Map
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My kids seem to learn through their stomachs, so I try to incorporate food into our lessons as much as possible. We recently made a Rice Krispies edible map as part of a geography lesson.
I recently found a new product in my grocery store that has made creating an edible map quick and easy. It allows me to add a dash of fun to our history or geography lessons with very little prep time.
Rice Krispies Treats Sheets! Can’t find the treat sheets or don’t want to buy one? That is totally okay! This edible map project works just as well with a batch of traditional Rice Krispies treats.
I think the intended purpose of these sheets is probably to slice and frost them like cookies. Homeschoolers are a resourceful bunch though, so I knew I could incorporate a treat sheet into my lesson plans with a little creativity.
As soon as we got to a lesson about India in our Story of the World vol. 3 curriculum, I pulled the Rice Krispies treat sheet out of my pantry.
How to Make a Rice Krispies Edible Map
1. Gather all of your materials
To make an edible map you will need:
- Atlas or map of your desired area (a quick internet search will turn up a few)
- Rice Krispies Treats Sheet
- Paring knife
- Coconut oil or butter
- Frosting, dyed green – grass
- Blue icing tube – rivers
- Brown sugar – deserts
- Hershey Kisses – mountain ranges
- M&Ms – large cities
These are the supplies I used, but you can certainly vary the candies based on what you have available. I’m not sure what it says about our snack habits, but I had all of this in my pantry and schoolroom already. I think some of it was leftover from our cell cake.
2. Unwrap the Rice Krispies Treats Sheet
The top of the treat is a bit sticky, but the wrapper all pulled off without much trouble.
Of course, you can always make a tray of homemade Rice Krispies treats instead. This project works equally well with homemade treats, it just takes a little longer because of the need to prepare the tray treats and letting them cool.
3. Cut the treat sheet into your desired shape using an oiled paring knife
I used an old Atlas from the used book store as my guide for the shape of the country. The treat sheet is backed by a piece of cardboard so you can cut through it directly without the need for a cutting board. If using homemade Rice Krispies treats, be sure to use a cutting board to protect your work surface.
The oil helps prevent the knife from sticking. Save the extra treat pieces that were cut away for snacking or another project.
4. Spread green frosting over the entire Rice Krispies country
The green frosting acts as grass, but it also serves an important function. This layer of frosting will help other geographical features, a.k.a. candy, stick.
5. Draw rivers and any large bodies of water with the blue frosting
I like to use either a frosting bag and tip or a Ziploc bag with a snipped corner to draw the water features on the edible map.
Don’t worry about perfection, just get the water in the correct general area.
6. Add a layer of brown sugar to represent deserts
Skip this step if there are no deserts in the country you are creating.
7. Add Hershey Kiss mountain ranges
Of course, this step is also only applicable for countries that have mountains.
8. Mark large cities using the M&Ms
There are a few ways to decide which large cities you want to mark on your edible map:
- Cities mentioned in your lessons
- Cities your child has heard mentioned
- Cities above a certain population size
- Historic cities
I chose to just mark the capital and cities we read about in our Story of the World lesson. My husband added a few more cities when he came home from work.
I have only seen these Rice Krispies Treat Sheets in the holiday food section of my Wal-Mart and online. They can be hard to find! Stock up on a few whenever you see them. They will last quite a while in your pantry.
You can of course create a Rice Krispies edible map using Rice Krispies treats you have made yourself. I made the treats when we made a map of Brazil during the 2016 Summer Olympics. Using the treat sheets just makes the project a little faster and less messy.
Have you ever made an edible map?
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