Scribblenauts: UnLunched!

 

Z had her phonics down pat sometime between ages 3 and 4, and would occasionally read random signs, like "Exit," while out and about, but refused to sound out words with us, or try and read books. She wanted us to do all the work for her. Until this past January, that is, when she played "Scribblenauts: Unlimited" on her cousins' Wii U. Her oldest cousin helped her spell a lot of the words, and read the clues in the game, but he'd get bored and wander off on occasion. This finally provided the impetus she needed to try and read and spell on her own! Yay! So when we got home we bought the game for the iPad and the desktop, and she went from refusing to even try simple words like "cat" to reading chapter books, all in less than a year!*

*I'm not trying to imply that this game taught her to read. It just gave her the motivation to use and hone the skills she already had.

She'd been asking for a "Scribblenauts" lunch for a long time now, and I finally had the time and inspiration to make it happen! I used our Planetbox Rover because all the compartments make it perfect to have a variety of different design elements all spread out and showcased.

 

Thursday, 11/7/13 - For the game's main character Max, I cut out the sandwich bread with a steak knife to make the head, and just used a scrap for the body. I painted on some India Tree natural red food color for his red hood thing. I also cut the face freehand, from a slice of dairy-free "mozzarella" and used a toothpick to scratch in the eyes and mouth.
When I was trying to get ideas for what to make in a Scribblenauts lunch, Z suggested his notebook and pencil. Only I had recently(ish) done a pencil and chalkboard lunch, and wasn't in the mood to do something similar quite so soon. Plus that would make it a very sandwich-heavy lunch.

So instead, I used a yellow dot pick poking out from the bread to make a "pencil," a white square-shaped pick with the design-side facing down to be his notebook, and a pick with a hand on it to be his hand. Whew! (I got the other pick set off of eBay. The white one had come in a vehicles set, but you can sometimes get a white square from this set.)

 

For the letters, I used my Zoku Social Media cutter set on slices of dairy-free "cheddar" and "mozzarella," and pressed them down to make them stick. This was the most annoying part of the process, as it turns out, since I kept having to adjust them to get them all to fit across. Next time I'll just use a smaller more uniform cutter set! Augh!

Organic grapes and yellow and purple carrots. dairy-free sliced cheese, dye-free gummy
heart and UNREAL candies, cheese curds, gluten-free PBJ w/dairy-free cheese "face"

Since the purpose of the game is to complete challenges and solve problems by spelling words to create things, I picked some of her favorite items to create. I used letter picks to spell out "WINGS" to go with some wing picks, which was one of the first words she memorized. Every new scenario she would make wings, a wig, and a dress to turn Max into a girl who could fly! Haha!
When I asked her for other item suggestions, she picked "WHALE," which worked out well, as I'd just gotten a set with a whale pick.

I also included some rainbow carrots cut with small flower veggie cutters, and a rainbow of UNREAL Candy dye-free candy-coated chocolates. Plus a gummy heart. Which, ironically, the game won't make. If you type "heart," you don't get the Valentine kind, much to my Kindergartener's frustration!

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