Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Play Dough

I was reading about the importance of  play dough in a fantastic book called "Rapunzel's Supermarket', by Ursula Kolbe. 


On page 22: " Give children ample time to get the feel of dough and clay without cookie cutters or rolling pins. Toddlers love to make forms they can squeeze, roll, bend, twist and flatten. If they are not distracted by tools, they quickly acquire skills- a language of hands". 


A good reminder for me, as I tend to let finn go crazy with his box of play dough tools. 

This is the recipe I use for play dough which works every time. If you use 'cream of tartar' it helps preserve the dough for up to 6 months. 




Dough can be used for many children's activities. We borrowed this idea from Play School the other day, and made a little garden using the dough as the ground (on Play school they made a fragrant garden with cinnamon sticks, and herbs like rosemary). For our interpretation Finn added sticks, leaves and rocks that he found on a walk. 

We have also had fun making bridges across two dough islands, and adding little plastic animals to make jungles, and paddle pop sticks to make animal zoos.  


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