My two year old loves play-dough. It is a constant request of hers. I long ago gave up buying the tiny tubs of play-dough and instead make my own every month or two as needed. When the Pixie girl got out our play-dough yesterday… it was too dried out so we decided to whip up some new Christmas play-dough. We made two batches… one scented with mint, the other with cloves. They have a wonderful holiday scent.
Here is my favorite recipe for play-dough (note the changes for the Holiday dough).
Kool Aid Play-Dough
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 c. flour
1 c. salt
2 packages unsweetened Kool AidFor the Christmas dough we used 2 tsp ground cloves and red food coloring in one and 1/2 tsp food grade mint extract and green food coloring in the other.2 tsp vegetable oil
2 c. boiling water
4 T cream of Tatar (if you have it… I often skip this but it does make for a nicer texture)
DIRECTIONS
1. In bowl, mix together all dry ingredients.
2. In saucepan, bring 2 cups water to a boil. Turn off heat and add oil.
3. Pour oil and water mixture into bowl, blend and knead.
Tip:
*Remind children that this dough is not meant to be eaten (the Pixie girl seems to enjoy it as a snack though – lol).
*This dough lasts for months when stored in an airtight plastic container. It lasts even longer when the container is refrigerated.
Note: I let the kids help blend the dry ingredients but I take over once we need to add the boiling water. I knead it to begin with and then hand it over to them to finish working in the color once it has cooled down a bit.
Once a month we are going to be making quilt squares to highlight some of the fun things we are learning about this year. We will each be making one 10″ x 10″ square every month and then at the end of the school year we will sew them all into a memory quilt.
This month we used a Glue Batik Fabric Painting method to highlight our recent apple studies. I stumbled across this idea on That Artist Woman‘s blog and knew we had to try it (check out her site for detailed directions). It was a really easy project for any age child but it does take a couple days to complete due to drying times.
First I cut out 10″ squares of white muslin. Then we drew a design on the fabric with pencils.
After we had our designs ready, we traced them with the Blue Gel Elmer’s School Glue. Then the fabric had to dry over night.
The next day we used water down acrylic paints to cover the entire square of fabric.
Once that dried we washed out the glue with hot water and a little dish soap. I hung the squares to dry and then ironed them flat.
A few notes: The next time we do this (and oh yes… I imagine we will be doing this many more times) I will encourage everyone to get more detailed – or at least cover more surface area with the glue. I also think I watered down my paints too much. I would have like brighter colors… they ended up drying a lot lighter than they originally looked but I had been afraid of the fabric ending up really stiff.
For this week’s Unplugged Challenge theme hard we made primitive folk art style Barnyard Animal Toys. When we first found out the theme last week, I asked the kids what was ‘hard’ and all of their answers all stemmed around wood. Wood blocks, wood toys, tree branches, etc. I spent several days trying to come up with an idea. Then I remembered a post my SIL, Tina had on her blog last week linking to directions on making wood toys. It seemed like a bit of a stretch to have the kids do it but they thought it was a great idea and were in on it every step of the way.
First I drew up some farm animal outlines based on some toys I saw online (I’ve included my drawings as a pdf if you would like Pig/Horse/Cow & Sheep/Goat), printed them and cut them out. I had each child pick their favorite and then we traced the animals onto a scrap piece of 1" thick pine. Using a coping saw, we cut out the basic shapes. Bug really likes to use a saw (he was lots of help to Daddy when fixing some rotten boards on the deck this spring) and enjoyed getting a chance to cut out his animal. The Fairy girl gave it a try too. In the end Daddy did do most of the cutting as the kids decided it was too hard (does that count as a second theme tie in?).
The step that they thought was the most fun was getting to use the Dremel to smooth the edges. Adorned with safety goggles and mommy’s steady hand they sanded their own animals. You could just use normal sand paper if you would prefer. I finished cleaning them up.
Once they were all smooth we used a light coat of Non-toxic children’s watercolor paints to give a color wash. I used the water colors because it is light enough to still see the grain (which is cool) and most importantly, it is what I had on hand. I still need to get a clear coat sealer or wax to apply over the color, but they are done enough for the kids to start playing with them.
All in all, I would guess this was about a 2 hour project. The kids are very proud of the toys that they made and are really enjoying them because of the process.