30 days of Pinterest: day 4

PLAYDOUGH!! My kids are totally into the stuff right now; more so than they have ever been that I can remember. It helped that when Grammy was here, she bought some new stuff...so they've been going to town with it. And mixing it up until it's all pretty much brown, and getting dried out. Anyone notice how not very long the stuff from the store lasts? Or am I just inept at playdough-storage? Either way, it was time for some newer stuff. I've made playdough before, of course; I worked in a preschool for 3 years, and I have a degree in Elementary Ed. Pretty sure it was on my finals...Playdough-Making 101(although apparently not storage). But I'd found a new recipe via my sis-in-law on Pinterest I wanted to try out; so-we did. It's one you actually have to cook, but it's still super easy to make. 

                        Cooked Playdough:
1 C. white flour
2 Tbsp. salt
2 Tbsp cream of tarter
2 Tbsp. oil (I used olive because that's what I have)
1 C. warm water
1 3 oz pack of Jello OR food coloring. I used a few drops of food coloring, not having Jello, and it worked beautifully...although I imaging Jello would make it smell fantastic! I let Pax pick the color-blue. Go figure! Although really it ended up being green.
directions: mix all ingredients together in a skillet or pot. Turn burner on med/low and continue to stir until playdough forms a soft ball; 10-15 minutes. Remove to tin foil and let cool; then knead a few times and let the littles have at it!

While the first batch of playdough was cooling, we mixed up another batch that required no cooking...I got the recipe out of this book, which my mom gave me when I had Pax. She had it when she had a playgroup/ daycare in our home when I was small, and it has lots of fun ideas in it! Books...the "old" Pinterest :)

 This dough recipe was almost identical, except instead of cream of tarter it used a cup of salt. The kids both helped with this one, thus the lack of photos-we had to knead it with our hands. Fun, but messy! Especially when they kept shaking off the sticky dough onto the floor...but then they had a blast with their "new" playdough! Pax likes to make all kinds of tracks in his dough, or dinosaur fossils, or hidden treasures...Blythe kept saying she was "makin' a snowman!". I love, love, love watching their imaginations come out in different ways.



 Then Pax gave up on the second kind of dough-it's much harder to mold than regular playdough. Not the favorite, although they're still using it. The first batch, however, is fantastic-soft and easily managed-more so than the store-bought stuff- and they both loved it. The next morning before breakfast, they ran to get it out and started cutting out shapes with cookies cutters, making snakes and "food", and doing lots more things than they'd done with either kind of dough before. Totally fun! They liked it so much we made a second batch the next day-B choose purple this time (no surprise there). So far, it lasts well in a plastic ziploc. I keep it in our "toy cupboard" on a shelf where they can reach it-I like that they can get it out whenever the mood strikes and start creating. Even if I do have to sweep every.time. they play with it. They're pretty good about cleaning up their messes when they're done, usually...and this is just a picture of what Pax chose to do while we waited for the "good" playdough to cool. His quiz cards...kinda like brainquest, only different.