Playdough

Playdough – always a winner, can’t beat it!!! and even better, why not make it with your children. Its so fun and easy, children love it, the playdough lasts longer than the shop brought alternative and you can make it to the quantity, colour and texture you desire!!!

Young children of various ages can enjoy it. Exploring their sense for touch, strengthening their fine motor skills and engaging, their sometimes challenged, concentration.

I have explored various recipes BUT I believe this one to be the best…it worked a treat with my little class this morning at school.

what you need…

~ 2 cups of flour

~2 cups of salt

~2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

~2 tablespoons of cream of tartar

~food colouring

~up to 1.5 cups of boiled water

what to do…

1. mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl
2. Add the food colouring into the water and then add the coloured water into the dry ingredients
3. stir continuously until it becomes a sticky combined dough
4. allow it to cool down a bit
5. knead it until the stickiness has gone and add more flour if it’s still too sticky
6. playdough!!!

then into a little dream adventure…

~playdough, obviously explores a child’s sense of touch, but can also explore their sense of smell too by adding essences to the mixture…try adding orange blossom or rose or vanilla

~you can also melt some jelly into the boiled water which enhances the smell too!!!

~one of my favourites is adding glitter to the playdough mixture, somehow making the whole experience that much more magical…perfect for a craft party or christmas activity

~read the story ‘the gingerbread man’ and use a variety of playdough cutters to make the gingerbread man and animals, making the whole book come alive!! this can be done with all sorts of children’s books and nursery rhymes, depending on which playdough cutters you have! start collecting…

~use plastic letters and numbers to make more academic learning fun!!! practice spelling their name or spelling words by pushing them into the playdough

~use a playdough cutter to cut out a man, dog, cat…see if they can spell these simple phonetic words using the plastic letters

~make worms, snails, sausages, nests, eggs, balls just by exploring with your hands to see what shapes you can make by rolling – excellent for developing hand/eye co-ordination