I hit up my Pinterest boards for ideas and decided we would make three different types of homemade play dough in one evening. The kids really enjoyed this activity. Nolan said everyone should vote on their favorite, and I'll tell you the results of that vote at the end.
I checked all tutorials, and we headed to Deals for cheap supplies. I only needed to buy shaving cream and a bag of flour because I had everything else on hand (I didn't want to use up my baking supply of flour!).
*Photo disclaimer: We did this activity at night, so we had no natural light for pictures. In addition to having horrible lighting, I also didn't clean any of my house before the activity/pictures. Please keep in mind that I was acting as a single mom for days and entertaining my kids who were home from school. Also, there is no explanation for Nora's hair. It had been in a ponytail, but it was done obeying brushes, ponytail holders, and gravity at this point in the night.
The first homemade dough was Foam Dough from Mom Trusted.
It's basically equal parts corn starch and shaving cream. Food coloring is optional, and we skipped it for this dough.
I dumped some corn starch on the counter and sprayed shaving cream over it. The kids tried to mix and knead it, but it just seemed to be making a mess.
So they continued mixing...
We reached a point where they all just wanted to wash their hands.
"No, we're gonna make this and have fun with it!" :)
So we kept adding corn starch and/or shaving cream. And they kept mixing.
Then it finally started coming together.
They could finally form it into shapes, like a snake:
This dough eventually got to be fun. We probably won't do it again, but it was worth a try.
Also, here's my little tip. I figured the kids wouldn't appreciate the strong scent of men's shaving cream, so I found some women's shaving cream that was raspberry scented. They liked it!
The second dough was Cloud Dough from TinkerLab.
Ingredients for this dough are just flour and oil. We measured 8 cups of flour into our biggest bowl, and then we poured 1 cup of vegetable oil into the middle of the flour.
Doesn't that picture look kinda like a sunny-side-up egg? :)
I started mixing the flour and oil together with a big spoon. Then I let the kids get in there with their hands.
The fun of this dough is the way it feels in your hands. The kids spent a long time just running their fingers through it, squeezing it together, and breaking it back into little bits.
The Cloud Dough is made of little tiny pieces that you can play with almost like sand.
Then when you press it or squeeze it, it holds its shape.
Eventually Nora wanted her own pile of Cloud Dough to play with while the boys worked together in the big bowl.
I was disturbed to see Griffin up on top of his stool like this:
The boys were working on making the Cloud Dough into a volcano.
This would probably be a good time to confess that I found myself playing with this dough. We left the big bowl out for a couple days after this night. I would run my fingers through it whenever I was on the phone or talking to one of the kids in the kitchen. A bowl of this on your desk might make a nice stress reliever.
The third dough we made was The Best Playdough Recipe from Tinkerlab.
This was a recipe that had to be cooked, so I started it while the kids were playing with Cloud Dough.
Nolan came over to help me stir. This was the first time I've ever let him help with something on the stove. {I know, I'm a mean overprotective Mom. It's ok.}
This recipe calls for water, a lot of salt, cream of tartar, vegetable oil, flour, and food coloring. I made one big batch of dough, divided it into thirds, and let each kid color his/her dough.
I put a piece of wax paper under each child's dough to prevent food coloring from getting on the countertop. I actually think we would have been just fine without the wax paper. Also, I used my gel food coloring for their dough.
Griffin's turned out to be a beautiful bright blue. He was pleased with his color and got right to playing.
Nolan wanted orange. We started with orange food coloring and ended up adding a bit of red to get a nice, vibrant orange.
Poor Nora. She chose pink food coloring, which didn't add much color to her dough no matter how much we used. Then she wanted to add some purple. It ended up a dull color. We just went with it.
The kids played happily with this dough for quite some time. They were playing so well that I decided to let them skip their showers and keep playing until bedtime. Then Jared called, and I chose to talk to him and let the kids keep playing past their bedtime. It was Spring Break, afterall.
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| I'm pretty sure this is exactly what I look like when I'm focused on making something. |
Nolan made a big orange castle:
Griffin made a person:
Nora made a sheep, but it fell over and she got mad and wouldn't let me take a picture of it.
This third dough was the closest in texture to store-bought Play-Doh. It was soft and squishy and moldable.
The Vote:
Nolan and Nora both voted for "Cloud Dough" as their favorite. Griffin voted for "The Best Playdough Recipe" as his favorite.
Overall, we had tons of fun experimenting with different types of homemade play dough. The kids learned during the process, they got to experience different textures, and we had a night filled with hands-on imagination and creativity.
That's a success in my book!
Jessica
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