Tuesday 5 February 2013

Play Dough

Play Dough


We have just started playing with Play dough as Hartley has stopped put everything in his mouth all the time. He still does occasionally but all the ingredients are edible and its so salty that he doesn't do it again!

Play dough is very easy to make here are a few of the recipes I use

Cooked Play Dough:
* 3 cups of water
* 3 cups of plain flour
* 1.5 cups of salt
* 3 tbsp of vegetable oil
* 2 tbsp of cream of tartar


* Put all the ingredients in a pan and cook over a low heat, stirring frequently. 
It will start to come away from the sides of the pan and make a ball. Turn off the heat when it seems dry enough. When cool enough knead until it is soft and smooth.



No-Cook Play Dough:
* 1/2 cup of salt
* 2 cups of plain flour
* 2 tbsp oil
* 2 tbsp cream of tartar
* 1.5 to 2 cups boiling water

* Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl then knead it until it becomes smooth. 

To make your play dough even better  add food colouring or scents.


You can add all kinds of things to make play dough more exciting. At the moment we are keeping it quite simple with cutters and rolling pins. I also added some cake cases, pom poms and straws. 

Strawberry and Chocolate Play dough

I decided to make strawberry and chocolate flavoured play dough for Hartley's party so that the children can make their own play dough cakes.  The Imagination Tree has lots of ideas on how to make lots of different, wonderful play doughs. 

To make the Chocolate dough I just added half a cup of cocoa. It smells really lovely.

I didn't have any pink or red food colouring so decided to use strawberry jelly crystals this not only made the dough a lovely pinky colour it also made it smell lovely.


I am also going to add cake cases, candles, sequins and pom poms so the children can make really beautiful cakes.

 



2 comments:

  1. I'm Eleanor Pace and I live in Malta. I am a mother of two children and a complementary teacher (I teach children with learning difficulties).

    I don't have cream of tartar but would love to try the recipe. I will not cook the dough but I love the idea of chocolate and strawberry flavours. Would the chocolate and strawberry dough keep outside the refrigerator? I don't have a refrigerator in my classroom. It would be really fun to make letter shapes with the dough with the 5-6 year old kids!

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  2. Hi, I have also used baking powder do you have this? I usually keep the dough in a covered container and it can keep for weeks. You do not need a refrigerator. This is a really great way of making play dough in the classroom as the children can help. We used to make this all the time! I will try this recipe with cream of tartar or baking powder and see if it works.

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