I am one of those un-fun moms who is not overly fond of Play Doh, or any of their following. I have deprived my children over the years by rarely letting them play with it. Yet, I have come to the conclusion that I just have to get over it. It is not about my aversion to the yucky feeling stuff but about my children's love fascination with it. Through many people (Do you really think that one person's opinion would be enough for this very stubborn person?) have I come to grudgingly accept the importance of this weird textured item. By way of this acceptance, I made a batch of this white dough. (I left all my food coloring at my mom's house.) Erik watched me make it and thought it looked like so much fun. (I will tell you about how I deprive my children from helping me cook in another post.) We are planning on making more (with the food coloring) come this Thursday with the help of Maggie and her children. (Hopefully, I will have lots of fun pictures to post then!) We are planing on using the dough to help us learn shapes, colors, and letters (and those are just a few of the school applications we have come up with so far!) While I accept that this stuff is important in the development of children, it does not make me like it all that much more. It feels weird, gets all over the place, is hard to clean up, etc. I could go on about all the reasons I do not have a love of the stuff but more to the point it is here to stay. I will use it and not too grudgingly since I am more concerned about my children having fun while learning than I am of it's oh so numerous shortfalls. All that aside, I do have a great recipe for it and love watching my three children play with it. During that time I was able to do quite a bit of research in order to start putting packets together for school. (The joys of home education!) I unfortunately did not get pictures of them playing since I was too busy looking for the right Preschool worksheets for Jeremiah but I promise to do better next time. Until then, here is one of the best recipes I have found so far.
1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. salt
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. oil
1/2 c. water
3/8 tsp. food coloring
Mix ingredients in saucepan and stir constantly. Cook over medium heat until dough leaves sides of pan. (This takes only a couple of minutes) Remove from pan and knead for a few min (or let your children do this cause, eww!)
HAVE FUN!! (This is on the instructions, trust me, this is not my addition.)
It makes about twice the amount than comes in a Play Doh container and has the best consistency and durability of all the homemade dough recipes I have found. It is probably the most similar to the actual brand name stuff and is way better than some of the off brand junk I have come across over the years. Now, I remember than after the food coloring is thoroughly mixed in; we did not have a problem with stained hands but I cannot remember how long that took. I will let you know on Thursday; (esp. if you see stained hands in what I am hoping will be great pictures from our craft/art/science project.)
1 comment:
Blogging eeyy...sounds catchy..let me know how it goes...I'd probably get myself in trouble writing online...gotta keep my tongue in a corral because it's bound to get loose and run a little too free...it's late, and I'm rambling a bit...anyways..playdough..yep, that stuff is fantastic and fun to make..but really messy..however, it keeps for about a good year in plastic ziplocks...and it really helps to mix the food color in before it balls up, because it blends much better, but I just wanted smaller batches of colors...so..no idea on that one..make more, yet less...hmm..I just made some the other week so it's funny you're writing about it...well, as for your handsome house full of masculinity..what the world views as a burden, we're so wonderfully blessed with eyes to see it for what it truly is...the most precious love filled gift from God to a human being, a presicous child (or more) to learn from, to humbly rely on the Almighty God for wisdom seeing that so often we're clueless and need His perfect love to help us daily, and it's even cooler to see more of God's love, through the love we have for our kids being saved by grace, def. not of our own works...or self efforts..The Father, calling us His beloved, His children...through His Son..by the cross and victorious resurrection. So, I was thinking about the blessing of kids..and have gotten officially side tracked on the amazement that God loves us more than we love our kids..beautiful...have a sweet night k..if this doesn't make sense it's because the computer erased my first response, and I'm having to write this over, the first one was much more flowing per say...love ya Beth, have a great week...have fun bloggin..Robin
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