Play Dough Clay
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbs oil
1 tsp food coloring
2 cups water
Mix ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until dough leaves the sides of the pan. Remove from pan, when cool to the touch, knead for a few minutes. Enjoy! Store in an air tight container.
May also use Kool aid powder instead of food coloring to color the play dough. It even makes it smell good!
IDEAS:
Use a rolling pin, and cookie cutters to make pretend cookies. Create a bakery and pretend to sell the cookies.
Put out mini pie tins, mini loaf pans, plastic knives, and add to the bakery.
Put out small cake pans, plastic letters, candles, small flowers to create birthday cakes.
Sculpt animals and make a zoo.
Use scissors to practice snipping and cutting.
Flatten play dough and roll cars and trucks on it to make tracks.
Add Mr. Potato Head pieces and make Play dough heads.
Flatten into a pie tin and make a keepable handprint. (You will want to paint it after it dries. Don't forget to add the name and date!)
Math:
Make small balls of playdough to add to a pie tin. Count the "cherries" you are putting in the pie.
Make cookies and have the kids draw a number card and add that number of chocolate chips (beads) to a cookie, then draw another card and add chips until all of the cookies have chips.
Make snakes and measure to see which is longer/shorter.
Make a snowman and talk about big, bigger, biggest balls to build the snowman. (or small, smaller, smallest)
Literacy:
Make snakes and then create letters with the play dough. Talk about how the letter is made. Does it have straight lines or curvy lines? Talk about what words start with the letter made.
Make animals from stories you read. For example, read "A House for Hermit Crab" by Eric Carle and then make a shell, a starfish, a snail, a coral, etc. out of play dough. Re tell the story with the characters you make.
Science:
Make fossils with shells, leaves, dinosaurs.
Put out small plastic animals and make footprints.
Make a ball, does it bounce? What happens when you try to bounce it on the table? What caused the flat spot on the play dough?
Make a ball and roll it down a tilted cookie sheet. How far did it roll?
Make fingerprints in the play dough and examine with a magnifying glass. Can you see the ridges?