How Many Microplastics Were in My Easy-Bake Oven?

A question for the ages.

I was tasked with organizing the craft activity for my son’s Kindergarten class Valentine’s Day party. In 2026, the competition for children’s attention is fierce. I’m up against tablets, video games, and those human hands playing with toys on YouTube. Which means: I had to bring out the big guns.

All of my favorite childhood activities involved heat and plastic. This kept me busy and enthralled for hours, and I have overwhelmingly positive memories about my time alone in my basement doing “art.” So if I have to choose between evils, unfortunately, it's microplastics.

I want my son to experience the unbridled joy of tucking into a tiny warm cake emerging from an Easy-Bake Oven. I need his friends to know the pleasure of pushing an entire glue stick through a hot glue gun and watching what I proudly called a “sculpture” ooze out of the other side. They must experience the acrid scent of Perler beads melting into animal shapes in a warm oven. I can still smell the cross between burning hair and burning rubber. What a thrill.

(The packets are “cakes.”)

That just got me thinking about Rubber Cement. Is that even allowed anymore? I think that might’ve been the first time I ever felt high.

So in honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re bringing back the good old classic: Shrinky Dinks.

Shrinky Dinks are magical little trinkets. You take a special piece of plastic, draw a delightful shape on it, bake it in the oven, and voila—it shrinks to nearly half the size of whatever you had drawn in the first place.

This is exactly the kind of fun kids need.

I can’t wait to see if any of the parents complain.

Research and development. AKA, the most fun I've had in a minute. Drop a heart if you laughed.