Snow Dough and Stick Man

I have not posted for quite some time.  My time has been taken up with other things lately and the blog has fallen down my to do list somewhat.  In spite of that we have still been doing lots of things both at home and at nursery but I have just not got round to writing about them.

Anyway here is an activity I've prepared for our toddler group.  We have spent the past two weeks looking at the ever popular 'The Gruffalo' and 'The gruffalo's Child.'  This week is the turn of 'Stick Man.'  Tomorrow we will be reading the story with the children and I have made some 'snow dough' for them to play with.  I simply added white paint and some silver glitter to my usual dough recipe.  I must confess the dough has a slightly different texture to normal, more spongy but still workable.

I made some stick men using twigs.  I stuck googly eyes on them and painted a nose and mouth with paint.  Plenty of wintery cookie cutters and the children can create whatever they want to.

You could adapt this activity and get the children to make their own stick men for small world imaginary play.  This is one of Girl's favourite stories so I'm hoping she'll really enjoy what we have planned for tomorrow!

Prehistoric Imaginary Play Kit

Another young friend's birthday meant a new homemade imaginary play kit earlier this week.  We had plenty of left over bits and pieces so we made a kit for Boy as well.  This kit includes green and brown play dough, a tree cutter, mini dinosaur toys, plastic leaves (from the aquatics dept at The Range), a dinosaur story, and some small wooden logs.

Boy was very excited by the idea of this 'dinosaur dough.'  We put it onto a small tray and he sat down one evening this week with it.

First he made bases for some 'trees' using the plastic leaves.

Then he used the dinosaurs to make prints in the dough.

Then he made this small world scene using all the resources on the tray.

We're looking forward to getting this kit out again later this week.  We may make some extra dough to go with it so the play can be extended a bit.

Sand & Surf Imaginary Play Gift

We have just returned from a friends birthday party so I am now able to share this idea for a birthday gift without it's recipient seeing it before opening it.  I've been thinking about giving some homemade play dough to little friends for their birthday's for a while.  I didn't want to just give the dough on it's own so I put a few different resources together on a 'sea' theme along with the dough.  It's intended to be really open ended with scope for all kinds of play and to encourage creativity and the imagination.  Here's what is included.....

The play dough is blue (added green and silver glitter) and yellow (added gold glitter.)

A boat shaped cookie cutter.

Three small plastic tropical fish.

A selection of seashells.  I also put in a small book about underwater creatures.

Then I made it look attractive by wrapping the items in a cellophane gift bag and putting the dough into a kilner style jar.  A blue ribbon and some blue paper to write a tag and it was finished!  I think it's a lovely idea to put something like this together for a child's present.  There are so many commercial toys on the market but it can be difficult to find something original that children can really explore and get creative with.  I intend to make some similar ones on different themes for some more birthdays coming up.  I'll post these once they're done!

Autumn Antics

 

Now that we walk to school and back every morning we have the perfect opportunity to collect some leaves on the way home.  When you really start to look there are some amazing colours.  We got home and I asked Girl what she wanted to do and she said 'play!'  We narrowed it down to play dough so we made some in autumn colours.

She experimented with the leaves and seeds we had collected pressing them into the dough.

She used cutters to make prints on the dough.

The contrast of the colours of the dough against the leaves was particularly striking and we enjoyed comparing different combinations.

We found we could make some lovely prints too.

Now we are on the lookout for other interesting autumn things to collect and play with.

Another great post on a very similar theme can be found here at Nurture Store.

Homemade Play Food

Having made salt dough models with the children at home the other day I made these pieces of play food in the same way.  These are for the new shop role play area we are creating at nursery.  We realised much of the play food was missing so I decided to make these.  For the recipe for salt dough take a look at this.

A selection of bakery items including jam tarts, biscuits, cupcakes, swiss roll and gingerbread men.

And some fruit and veg; apples, pears, bananas, tomatoes and potatoes.

Obviously you know your children and if they are likely to put things in their mouths then this wouldn't be such a good idea.  We will be using these with children 3 years and over.  I painted them with ready made toxic free water based paint from tesco.  I mixed the colours and it was fairly easy.  The children helped me make some bread and pies yesterday at the nursery so our shop should be pretty well stocked by the end of today.  I've also collected a few boxes (cereal, egg, toothpaste etc..) too!  I really enjoyed making these actually, very cheap and easy too!

Decorating Salt Dough

This morning we finished off the Salt Dough Shapes we made yesterday.  We used a variety of ready made paints and also some glitter paints and sequins.

They each painted a tealight holder.

As well as the different shapes Boy made yesterday.  Boy was very keen to stick to just the one colour on each of his shapes whereas Girl enjoyed using lots of colours on hers.

The finished tealight holders turned out well I think.  We may put glue or varnish over these if the paint rubs off to the touch, if not we'll just leave them as they are.

Salt Dough Shapes

It has been quite a while since we last did salt dough models so I quickly made some salt dough this afternoon whilst Girl was asleep and Boy was out on a trip to the dump with his Dad.  When he came back I had laid out the dough and some equipment for him.  Girl was still napping so she didn't take part on this occasion.

The recipe for this dough is different to the play dough one I usually use.  Salt dough is used to make models and shapes which are then baked in the oven and go hard.  They can then be decorated and painted and you can keep your child's creation.  It's very simple to make.  All you need is plain flour, salt and water.  The measurements are 2 parts flour, 2 parts salt and 1 part water.  For this small quantity I used 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and 1/2 cup water.  Mix the ingredients together in a bowl until a firm dough is formed.  Knead until smooth.  Job done!

He wanted to make a tealight holder - I suggested this actually because it is an easy shape to achieve and is then functional and could be given as a gift to a great grandmother who's birthday it is soon.  If you know her, don't show her this!

After this he decided to roll out the dough and cut out shapes.  Circles, stars and hearts.

Once you have made your models, put them on a baking sheet and bake for a few hours in a low oven (about 100 degrees).  If your models are quite large or thick it might take up to 3 hours for them to harden.

Once they are done they will be very pale white in colour and very hard.  Once they are cooled you can paint and decorate them.  We will be doing this tomorrow using some glitter paints I picked up at the weekend.  Hopefully Girl will be able to decorate some of the shapes too.  You could use this dough to make all sorts of models and creations - let your children's imagination take the lead and see what they come up with!
Find out what happened when we decorate these here.  To find out how to make some great play food using salt dough have a look at this post.

Gingerbread Play Dough

This one totally came from the children.  I had some orange play dough left over from having given some away and, since we have been having a sensory week at nursery, I put some orange extract and cinnamon in.  I asked the children what it reminded them of and they said 'gingerbread men!'  I had never thought of making gingerbread play dough but thought I would give it a go.  This is what happened.

I made a small batch of play dough (1 cup plain flour, 1 cup water, 1 tbsp cream of tartar, 3/4 cup salt, 1 tbsp veg oil.)   Then I added a little orange colouring and several spoonfuls of ground ginger and a little mixed spice.

I put out lots of baking equipment and also some raisins out with the dough and let the children create what they wanted.  At first Boy did not want to play so Girl had the dough to herself.

Boy soon wanted to join in too!

He began cutting out gingerbread men and I asked 'what are you making?'  'A gingerbread family!'  He replied.

Then he made a current bun.

The dough smells just like freshly baked gingerbread men and was a real hit in our house.  Boy wanted to make some real gingerbread men - we will no doubt do this at some point soon.  He kept saying 'can we cook these mummy?'  This would make a great Christmas activity too.  I'm so glad the nursery children prompted me to try this.  Thanks kids!