We don’t own a classic Mr. Potato Head doll, but the toy is great for so many reasons. Of course there’s the pure silliness of mixing and matching the facial features, but Mr. Potato is also a teaching tool for the names of facial features and for emotions. With an extra potato in the fridge, today I made Veronika this silly homemade version!

To start, I drew two faces on the potato with permanent marker: one side of his face was happy and the other was sad. Veronika wanted to add a few pen marks of her own.

Poke two toothpicks into the sides of the potato as arms, then use hot glue to add pom poms to the tips, covering up the sharp points. You can also add pom poms or even buttons on top for a hat! Two wiggle eyes completed the look.

If you want to get more detailed, draw other features with permanent marker, too. Finally, I sliced a bit off the bottom so Mr. Potato could stand upright. Now I presented him to Veronika, and she was smitten!

She loved that his expression changed whenever she turned him around, and this was a great way to talk about emotions. “Mr. Potato is feeling sad,” I told her… and oh no she pouted her lip in sympathy until we turned him to his smile.

We also pointed to all his features, rattling off a vocab list of eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. She loved finding these and then touching the corresponding part on me.

And then she just loved playing with him as an “action figure”! Have you ever made toys out of food? Please share in the comments!