Family Fun has some great ideas. I've made the gumdrop flower cake and a few other recipes from the site. I've posted these before but here are a few things I've done just playing around. I'm sure Cathy (Mustangs) has some great ideas also.

Here is a link that might be useful: family fun recipes

tracey thanks, I like the idea of doing something with bread-those are cute. I'll check out Family Fun.

You might want to check out bento molds for veggies, rice, and eggs. Very cute!

They can mix up Jell-O jiggler solution and then cut shapes out with cookie cutters the next day. Also can mold them into shapes with household items like these chicks made in a deviled egg tray.

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

Well....it pretty well depends on how old the kids are....any kid over say 8 would think jello shapes and flower shapes are pretty lame...ir bogus in the vernacular.
Girls might enjoy making the "cute stuff"....but boys not so much.

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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Sorry, I forgot to mention the ages, 2-7. Thanks for the ideas. Anyone else?

Not so long ago I was wondering the same. I went with my family on holiday to this place and we took the kids of our neighbour with us. There were some days full of rain so we had to keep the children happy inside the house - and I came up with the same thought, that cooking some fun food together would be nice. Lucky as I were, the holiday home we stayed in had internet, so I could have a look around. If found some great ideas for young kids:

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!

lindac - definitely gotta try the aquarium jello. I think they will love it.

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.

A small cotton candy machine is not expensive. I bought one for $30.00.

The kids will absolutely go nuts with it.

dcarch

Invite dcarch over to direct the activities. The kids will have their best ever time in the kitchen. He's like one of them but with vastly more experience and resources.

Jim

This will fire up kids' interests in cooking as well as in science.

Cook hot dogs in minutes.

dcarch

Here is a link that might be useful: solor oven

I worked for a nutrition program for a few years, and one thing the little ones really liked was edible play dough (as long as there's no peanut allergies).

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.

Countrygal:
Here are a few ideas.
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School of Fishes - ( Fishcakes )

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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

For Easter I make a sweet bread that I shape like eggs. Large ones and smaller ones. Then I paint them with food coloring. I've done it with kids using smaller loaves of bread and letting them go to town. Of course like any painting with kids event, you want to cover the table with plenty of newspaper or craft paper. You could have them help make shapes with the bread dough like Lou's bunny. They can make any kind of animal, then paint them when they're baked. You know kids and paints, they lovvvvee it.

I just checked out those tie dyed tortilla chips. So you could let them paint the tortillas and then use them as wraps for their lunch. That sounds like fun! Paint the bread and then use the paint on the tortillas to make wraps for lunch while the bread is baking. I want to come..lol..

Here's a great site that will keep you busy. Kids a Cookin'.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Kids a Cookin'

dcarch - I'm sure my 6 year old grandson would be thrilled if I would make a solar oven, but I'm not sure I'll go to that much bother (maybe another time). Thanks for the input though.

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.

I have an Idea to make shirt sand witch by using ingredients 1 slice of toasted bread, 1 piece of bologna, 1 piece of yellow cheese, 1 piece of orange cheese, 1 piece of marble cheese, 1 piece of parsley, 1 piece of red bell pepper, 1 leaf of lettuce, and butter/ salad dressing/or mayo.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fun4kids

Try making yummy tacos. If you have lots of kids at home and you can go for ready to use taco fillings. I have tried ones by classic foods, they are just so awesome! Do give it a try. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: yummy tacos