Category: Play Dough

Making an Impression

All this month, I’ll be sharing a variety of art activity ideas for you on Mondays… this week, I wanted to share an impromptu lesson on impressions that we both had a whole lot of fun with!

Becca LOVES playing with play dough, and she’s finally starting to get good at pushing cookie cutters down into the dough and coming out with shapes of dough.  Amazing how difficult that is when your fine and gross motor skills are still developing!  So the other day when she was playing, I thought I’d throw something new her way… and handed her a fork.  I loved her immediate response when I pressed the fork into the dough.  “WOW, Mommy!  You made ridges!”  And so it began.

First it was the fork, then a little pumpkin bead, then her spiky ball, then a food pouch lid, then a play apple… she took time to press each thing into the play dough to see what response she got from the item, and from the dough.  She noticed that the play dough wanted to stick to the spiky ball, but the plastic bead came right out… both left neat impressions.  The food pouch lid was just a mess.  It left a neat impression, but brought back a bunch of play dough stuck inside.  The apple was most disappointing to her – because she did it last, and it’s smooth surface “wiped away my holes!”  The spiky ball had left such a neat pattern, and then suddenly it was gone!

It was such a fun lesson, I know she’ll be wanting to do this again soon, so I’m already trying to think of things we can use to make impressions on play dough.

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Orange/Pumpkin Scented Playdough

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I love making play dough, I really do.  But it’s been a LONG time since I had made any because I really need stuff I can throw together quick, and I’m not really willing to dedicate 20 minutes of my time just to making something I’m gonna throw away in two weeks.  But, with all the fun play dough options out there, I wanted to try my hand at modifying my favorite recipe, to see if I could make something fun for fall.  And wow, was it a success!!  I had to remind Becca that we don’t eat the play dough, we just smell it and look at it and feel it. IMG_8509

Here she is smelling it – she did this several times – it really does smell GOOD, ya’ll.  (A great conversation about our 5 senses followed – and she informed me that we can hear it too – we can hold it to our ears and squeeze it!)  I gave her some fall shaped cookie cutters to play with, and she loved them!  She kept calling the turkey a chicken, but we can work on bird recognition later. 🙂

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So, here’s how you make your very own pumpkin play dough:

It works best in an electric skillet, but can be done on the stovetop in a non-stick pan.  I recommend using a wooden spoon for mixing, but that’s not required.  Bring to a boil: 1 1/4 cup water and an overflowing Tbsp + an overflowing tsp of vegetable oil
Meanwhile, mix in a bowl (child can help if you feel like also having a math lesson!): 1 cup flour, a little less than 1/2 cup table salt, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, and 2 packets of orange Kool-aid.
Turn the heat off on water/oil after it’s boiled hard.  Dump in the dry ingredients, and stir well until dough forms.  Use the spoon to lump dough together in the center, allow to cool for about ten minutes, then place in freezer bag or sealed plastic container.  Condensation will form- this is good, and helps the play dough stay moist.
Note: If your dough isn’t very moist, but rather grainy, you have too much salt and/or not enough oil. 
I highly recommend thorough hand washing when done, and then using hand lotion- the salt in the dough can really dry your skin, and the cinnamon and nutmeg can cause super sensitive skin (like Becca’s) to turn a bit pink.  The dough should be kept in a sealed container when not in use, and will stay fresh for about two weeks.
Enjoy the scents of fall in your kitchen!
Total Prep Time for Mommy: about 20-25 minutes
Total Play Time for Becca: on first use, about 30 minutes, but I know she’ll use it every day for the two weeks til I have to throw it away and make some more.  Maybe I’ll try apple scented play dough then… hmmm…