Sense, Learn, Play: Play Dough

Way back when I did another Sense, Learn, Play about apple pie spice play dough. I learned then that Addison didn't care about play dough. She was too young or just didn't have the interest. She wanted to eat it or watch me throw it up into the air over and over again. So I just packed it away and knew that we would be able to pull it out again one day but that was not the day. Months later I did it again with the same results. So again I packed it away.

But now I have a 21 month old, and a need to fill up our hot summer days. We play outside, we read books, we try to keep ourselves busy. But Addison was getting antsy inside and we needed something new.

So again I pulled out the play dough, and amazingly it was just a soft as the day I made it. I figured it wouldn't hut to give it a shot. And it turned out to be a hit. She loved the play dough. Especially when we combined it with cookie cutters.

At first she wasn't sure, but over time she became more comfortable and tried to mimic my actions. I would put a cookie cutter into the play dough and she would try to do the same. She was definitely interested.

But all we had was that one, so I went digging through some things I packed away for another day and found some store bought play dough. Unfortunately they were all dried up, so I decided to make more.

Using the same recipe as before but leaving out the apple pie spice and adding different food coloring, I made four more colors.

Homemade Play Dough:
1 cup water
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup flour
1/3 cup salt
1 heaping tbsp. cream of tarter
Food coloring

Mix all but food coloring together in a sauce pan for 3-4 minutes over medium heat. It will start chunky but will smooth out. Put the ball of dough on a cutting board (I used wax paper) and flatten to cool. When it's cool enough to touch, add drops of food coloring. Use a metal spoon or your hands and knead the dough until it's the color you want. Store in an airtight container.

It's really easy to make and seem to stay good longer than the store bought stuff.

I might do more playing with play dough than Addison, but it's growing on her. She seems to be having more fun with it and more interested in it than she used to. She's learning and playing. And hey she's touching play dough and that's huge since she hates touching things.

I highly recommend making your own play dough. It's easy to do. You probably already have all the stuff you need to do this - well, maybe not the cream of tarter but that's easy to get in your spice section of your grocery store. It's definitely worth with all the hours of fun you'll have ahead of you.