Natural wooden toys are versatile and fun for kids of all ages. They look pretty, and I think they lead to peaceful play. Using Kool-Aid to color unfinished wood pieces is a great way to customize your own set of toys that aid in fine motor, visual art and math skills.

Older children can even help prepare these manipulative pieces after you’ve prepared the hot dye!

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You will need:

plain wooden pieces (I used wooden nickels)
Kool-Aid or other unsweetened drink mix in a variety of colors
glasses
hot to boiling water
spoons
paper towels

NOTE: The wooden nickels I chose are not safe for children under 3. Be sure to choose shapes and sizes that are appropriate for your children.

Step 1: For each color of Kool-Aid, set up a glass and mix the packet with about 1 cup of boiling water. Stir to mix the powder thoroughly.

For some colors, you may find that you’ll need more than one pack to a cup of water. For the green, I used two packs, and I probably could have done that with the blue and purple to get them a little more vibrant. But mellow is okay too.

Step 2: Add some of the wooden pieces to each cup. You can do a bunch at once, but don’t overcrowd the cup. You’ll want to stir and separate the pieces every few minutes so they are dyed evenly.

Leave them in their dye bath for at least 20 minutes. The longer they’re in, the more color they’ll soak up.

Step 3: When it looks like the pieces aren’t getting any darker, pull them out of the dye and rinse them with cool water. You can even let them soak in clear water for a few minutes to get rid of excess dye.

Then, lay them out on paper towels to dry. You can lean them on each other to let some air circulate underneath, but keep them grouped by color in case there was still some extra color that comes off. They’ll take at least 24 hours to dry, and it helps to flip them over half way through.

Step 4: Now it’s time to play and build!

These discs are fun for stacking and creating mini structures. They also work well for making mosaic-like pictures:

Of course, they are perfect for teaching color sorting and patterning too. Sometimes the simplest of toys are the ones that bring the most creativity!

The one thing I wondered about these was, will the dye be colorfast? Because it’s a drink mix, it’s safe, but that doesn’t mean you want to spread these colors everywhere! Once the pieces dried, I put a deep blue wooden nickel in my mouth (the things I do for craft!). No color came off in my mouth, and when I rubbed the now-wet disc on other things, I saw no color left behind.

Again, I wouldn’t recommend these for toddlers, if only for the choking hazard, but I think it’s safe to say that your preschooler will be able to play for hours and hours without incident.

Have fun dyeing wooden discs, blocks, and other shapes!