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Playdough Exploration
Creating and playing with playdough has many developmental benefits as it offers infinite learning opportunities to explore and investigate. Using materials right out of your kitchen, make soft and squishy playdough for your child to manipulate.
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- 1 Bowl for dry materials
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- 1 Bowl for liquid materials
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- 2 cups of Flour
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- ¾ cup of Salt
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- 4 teaspoons of Cream of Tartar
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- 2 tablespoons of Vegetable Oil
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- 1-1.5 cups of boiling water
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- Food Cooler (optional)
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1. Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in one bowl.
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2. Add food colouring to the boiled water.
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3. Pour hot water in increments to the dry materials while stirring continuously until it becomes sticky.
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4. Allow it to cool down then take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously for a couple of minutes till the stickiness is gone.
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5. If it remains a little sticky, add a little bit of flour until it feels right.
You can customize your playdough by adding different colours, scents, or glitter.
Start off by inviting your child to the process of creating the playdough by encouraging and offering them mini tasks to complete for example; mixing ingredients, kneading dough (once cooled). Once it’s complete, give your child the chance to feel the properties of the playdough. Manipulating playdough helps strengthen hand muscles which prepares children to hold materials like pencils and scissors in the future. Introduce words such as, squish, squeeze, roll, flatten, chop, cut, rake, poke and shred, during the experience.Don’t be afraid to get a little silly. Ask your child to use different parts of their body to explore the playdough. You never know, they may just end up using their feet to stomp on it!
EarlyON