Our family enjoys watching heart-felt family competition shows together. They bring our family together and inspire imaginative play. They also encourage us to try new real-life skills! We love shows that have real people engaged in creative activities, moving at the speed of life (rather than cartoons or high-speed action).

I’ve shared about our family’s love of Friday night pizza and baking shows, along with my favorite basic pizza dough recipe. This past year, we’ve still been loving baking/cooking shows, but we’ve also expanded into other family competition shows that highlight a variety of skills.

We’re sharing some of our favorite family competition shows with links to the trailers. We’re also sharing links to some of our favorite imaginative play activities inspired by the various family competition shows. They also inspire us to try out the activities in real life, and develop our own cooking, baking and crafting skills!

Creative Family Competition Shows

1. Making It: This lighthearted crafting show is hosted by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman from Parks & Recreation. 8 talented makers complete a series of handmade projects, with one person eliminated each episode. The show celebrates creativity, craftiness, and craftsmanship.

Play Inspiration

Arts and Crafts Supplies: We love keeping a well stocked arts and crafts cart, so the girls can create any kind of craft they can dream up!

2. The Great Pottery Throw Down: This pottery show is from the creators of “The Great British Bake Off”, and follows a similar format. 10 home potters complete a series of 3 challenges, including a main make, a technical spot test, and a throw down. They declare the best potter of the week, and also eliminate one contestant each episode. We love watching the potters create pieces that are both beautiful and functional.

Play Inspiration

Model Magic Clay: Our girls love forming their own creations out of clay and allowing them to air dry!

Pottery Wheel Kit for Kids: We have this unique pottery wheel kit on our wishlist for developing slightly more advanced pottery skills.

3. The Big Flower Fight: 10 pairs of florists, sculptors and garden designers compete to create extravagant floral installations. The contestants design and create gigantic living sculptures. Each episode one team is awarded “Best in Bloom”, and one team is eliminated.

Play Inspiration

Garden Building Toy: This is a fun way for our girls to create their own flower garden, and stack and build flower creations!

A World of Plants book: Our girls love going to the grassy field in our neighborhood to look at wild flowers, and looking at the gorgeous images of plants in this large, beautiful coffee table book.

4. Blown Away: The contestants on this show are glassblowers, who compete in a warehouse to create unique glass designs. They must create glass sculptures in response to a brief, and one competitor who does not “blow away” the judges is eliminated each episode. Blowing glass requires a unique skill set, and is mesmerizing to watch!

Play Inspiration

Craft It – Hand Blown Glass book: Inspired by Blown Away, this book is on our wishlist, as a nonfiction read about the art of glass blowing, the history of blown glass, the tools and equipment that are used, and how it is still practiced today.

5. The Floor is Lava: This is a hilarious competition show that our girls thoroughly enjoy watching! They LOVE watching the competitors race across the obstacle courses, and disappear into the lava if they fall!

Play Inspiration

The Floor is Lava game: This interactive game require players to move around the room to land on different obstacles, and also answer trivia questions! We had fun playing this game with extended family this summer!

Baking/Cooking Family Competition Shows

6. The Great British Baking Show: This was the first baking show our girls watched! Each episode challenges the bakers on a different baking essential skills, like cakes, breads, pastries, and desserts. This competition show starts with 12 bakers, and eliminates a baker each episode until they declare the winner of the season!

Play Inspiration

Barbie Chef Doll: This chef doll is one of the favorites in our home, and they love making her bake with the baking accessory pack.

The Barbie cake decorating set that comes with a baking island, oven, molding dough, and toy icing pieces is on their wishlist!

7. Nadiya Bakes: Nadiya Hussain is our favorite baker from the The Great British Baking Show! She now has her own show where she shares her favorite baking recipes, from everyday treats to indulgent desserts. She is a joy to watch!

Play Inspiration

Nadiya’s Bake Me A Story: This book is a favorite in our home! Our girls love reading the unique fairy tales as bedtime stories, and then cooking the recipes together during the day.

8. Sugar Rush: Each episode features 4 new teams of 2 bakers, who work together to create cakes and other confections. They have 3 progressively more difficult challenges to complete, and they have to quickly complete the first challenges to have more time for the final challenge. However, they must be careful not to sacrifice quality, because one team is eliminated at the end of each challenge!

Play Inspiration

Play Doh Magical Oven: Our girls love creating pies and cakes out of play doh, and “baking” them in the oven that even lights up and makes a “ding” sound when the timer goes off!

9. Zumbo’s Just Desserts: This Australian dessert show is judged by patisserie chef Adriano Zumbo. 12 cooks are challenged to create intricate and delicious dessert challenges each week. The 2 chefs who are ranked lowest at the end of each round have to go head-to-head in the “Zumbo test” to replicate one of his unique desserts.

Play Inspiration

Princess Baking Set: Our girls love the challenge of creating a real-life, intricately decorated cake, and this set is perfect for inspiring their creatively!

10 Nailed It!: Each episode features 3 home bakers who attempt to re-create edible masterpieces, but their attempts don’t always turn out great. The amateur baker who comes closest to a successful dessert in each episode wins!

Play Inspiration

LEGO Friends Baking Competition: This was a recent birthday gift in our home, and the girls love building the competition kitchen set and setting up the mini dolls with cake stands, baking accessories, little treats and icing!

11. Crazy Delicious: This show features a whimsical, edible garden set, where 3 cooks gather their own ingredients. They are then turn challenged to transform the ingredients into extraordinary culinary creations. They are judged on originality, visuals, and flavors.

Play Inspiration

KidKraft Ultimate Corner Wooden Play Kitchen: This large play kitchen is a prominent feature in our play room and gets a lot of use from all 3 girls!

12. Be Our Chef: Our family’s dream is to compete on this show! 5 families enter the competition at Walt Disney World, and in each episode 2 families go head-to-head in a themed cooking challenge. They create dishes inspired by a Disney theme, and take breaks to play challenge games. And it’s hosted by Angela Kinsey from The Office!

Play Inspiration

Chef Dress-Up Set: Our girls enjoy dressing up like a chef when they’re playing with their play kitchen or helping cook in our real kitchen. Dress the part!

Our Future Watch List

13. Master Chef Junior: Our girls love helping bake and cook in the kitchen, so this show that features kids being the chefs in the kitchen is on our watch list!

Play Inspiration

Curious Chef Nylon Knife Set: We love letting the girls cook with us in the kitchen, so it is important that they use kid-size, safe utensils. These nylon knives are sharp enough to cut food, but not sharp enough to cut little fingers.

14. Great British Sewing Bee: Our girls love designing clothes for their dolls, so I think this show would be a huge hit!

Play Inspiration

Melissa & Doug Fashion Design Art Activity Kit: Our girls love designing fashion outfits, so we think they will really enjoy the Great British Sewing Bee.

Felt Squares and Cool Glue Gun: Another favorite activity in our home is designing outfits for dolls using felt squares and a cool glue gun!

15. All That Glitters: Competitive jewelry making? This is another show that looks like be a big win in our house!

Play Inspiration

Just My Style ABC Beads: Our girls love designing jewelry, especially bracelets with their name or other fun words on the elastic, so we think they will love the All That Glitters show!

We hope you enjoy checking out the trailers of these fun competitive shows. Let them inspire imaginative play in your home, and encourage you to try out the activities in real life!

Thanks for pinning: Family Competition Shows!

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