So my daughter's day care teacher loves to do arts and crafts. She has put a sign up asking parents to donate products or ideas. So I asked her if I could bake the kiddies some cookies and let them decorate them. I was thinking of baking pumpkin cookies and making them some of antonia's icing. But if I remember that they must keep a damp cloth over it. So I am wondering if I should just let them use it. Also should I just give them some ziplock baggies and tell teacher to snip bottom corner so they can decorate? Let me know. I am sure I will have more ?'s
That sounds pretty complicated for a three year old. My daughter is just barely three and she can't spread icing yet. However, what she loves to do (and would work for your group too) is to use food color pens on already dried icing. Whenever I'm working on cookies, I make up a few extra "blank" ones just for her to use food coloring pens on. For Halloween you could make up pumpkin cookies and use Antonio74s icing (or any other icing that dries hard) to color them orange then let the children color on the faces. This would work with white ghosts or just about anything. You do MOST of the work...the kids finish it and THEY TAKE ALL THE CREDIT.
Sounds like a fun project. Hope it goes really well for you.
We always decorated with colored sugar and candies . . . . or you could just buy some of the wilton cookie icing - it doesn't dry quite as fast and comes in the elmer's glue looking containers.
Or you could also use alice's cookie icing . . . doesn't dry quite as fast, but may be better for kids.
I had my kids decorate with a piping bag when they were young and some of them got the hang of it pretty quickly.....but I would suggest using a buttercream icing rather than RI. RI is so tempermantal and dries out so quick that I would only use it if they were to be stored and wrapped and these will probably be devoured as they are being decorated. You are a brave woman! 
I vote for the food marker idea !! It's gonna be messy enough without them using icing in bags.......I think the icing in bags idea is better geared towards 6to 7 yr. olds. A 3 yr. old is fine doing the icing by themself.......but when they get with other 3 yr. olds it's a messy proposition!!!!!
My 3yo daughter's preschool does something similiar. My fellow parents sign up for profession day. I thought it would be fun to decorate cakes or cookies with the toddies. I had the same concerns with using RI. Here's what I know. Use Buttercream Icing. The kids eat the cookies so fast after decorating, it's not worth the hassle of working with RI. Popsicle sticks work great as spreaders and any sprinkles, small candies or licorice make great accessories. Good luck!
I think I would take buttercream (or even a can of icing from the store) in a dish and let them spread it on a cookie like buttering bread. It doesn't really matter if it is perfectly covered. Then let them shake on some holiday sprinkles and you are all set. My daughter is 3 and spreads cream cheese on bagles with a plastic knife no problem. Just make sure you have lots of plastic knives because they will try to lick it then scoop more icing. YUCK.
I know there's a big difference in ages 4 and 3 but I let my 4 year old GD use a paintbrush (the ones especially for cakes/candies/cookies) to decorate cookies. I used RI and she had a blast "painting" them. She was actually pretty neat too. I put different colored icing in separate plastic containers and we passed/shared colors to each other. But she got bored after about 45 minutes & I got stuck finishing up all the cookies.
I have a four year old and he loves to decorate cookies with me. I only use buttercream, I make him his own bags with icing in them and he has a blast. Granted the cookies don't look all that good, but he has a great time and that is all that matters! So I would have to say agree with the others and say you should do buttercream if you are going to do this!
I like the idea of making up orange pumpkins and then letting them draw on the faces - except that I don't know how expensive the food markers are - I've never bought them. So sprinkles may be the cheapest (and easiest) route, and at age 3, they aren't going to be creating works of art, LOL! Sounds like a great time, hope you all have fun!
You could always bake the cookies and use fondant to cover them and let them decorate with the food pens.
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