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.
This week’s Unplugged Challenge theme was Smooth. The first thing that came to mind was finger paints. I decided to do something different though and we made our own bath tub finger paints. We ended up with very slippery, smooth kiddos ;). You know the old expression… Smooth as a baby’s bottom!
I googled bath tub paints and ended up combining a few directions to accommodate what we had in the house. No shaving cream and I wasn’t about to use up our California Baby shampoo (although if we do this again in the future I will definitely use a tear-free clear shampoo instead of the dish soap – we got some bubbles in the eyes!).
Ingredients:
1 cup mild clear dish washing soap or baby shampoo
5 TBSP cornstarch
food coloring
Directions:
Mix slowly mix in corn starch to dish washing soap until you get the right finger paint texture. It should be thick enough to not be drippy. Divide into separate containers (you can use ice cub tray for small amounts of lots of colors). Add food coloring to get desired colors.
Before we cleaned up we took some prints of the kids work. I think the tile pattern looks pretty cool. The food coloring cleaned up with no problems… my grout looks better than before. We used some store bought bath crayons before and they left color in the grout. Please note: This does produce a lot of bubbles when you start cleaning it up.
Ha! This was one of the baking episodes that you get started only to realize that you are missing some key ingredients. My husband refuses to buy in bulk. Just not his nature and I will agree tends to lead to wasted food (at least around here). He prefers to shop on a daily basis. I’m not going to complain since he does do all of the grocery shopping! But it does mean my pantry and fridge are fairly meager looking, especially in comparison with my mom’s which is always busting at the seams, leaving her ready to cook anything on a moment’s notice. But back to the cookies, I ended up having to cut the recipe in half to pull it off.
These are our favorite cookies. Everyone likes them (cooked or right out of the bowl) and their oatmeal and grape nut content allow me to ‘believe’ that they are practically a granola bar and therefore good for you ;).
Grape Nut Cookie Recipe
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 c. (3 sticks) margarine
2/3 c. firmly packed brown sugar
2/3 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
2 c. Post Grape-Nuts cereal
2 c. oatmeal
1 c. dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, etc.)
DIRECTIONS
Mix flour and baking soda in small bowl. Bear margarine in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed to soften. Gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well after each addition. Stir in cereal, oats and fruit. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake in a 375 oven for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool 1 minutes; remove from cookie sheets. Cool completely on wire racks.
What a yummy way to cook with veggies! We made Carrot Cake to correspond with our Veggie Unit this week.
This is an old family recipe and a favorite of mine. Hard to argue with a Cream Cheese frosting. Bug got to help Gammy with the carrot chopping by using the food processor. Pretty cool! And the girls helped me with the mixing while eating their weight in carrots.
Carrot Cake
INGREDIENTS
Cake:
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 3/4 c. mazola oil
4 eggs
2 c. flour
2 t. soda
3 c. grated carrots
1/2 c. chopped nuts
1 t. vanilla
dash salt
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
Icing:
1 4 oz. package cream cheese, room temp.
2 t. vanilla
1/4 c. butter
powder sugar
DIRECTIONS
Mix all cake ingredients together. Pour into greased and floured 9×13 pan. Bake in 300 oven for 1 hour or until done. Let cool. Blend all icing ingredients together and frost on cooled cake.
To correspond with our lesson this week on Veggies, we made Salt Dough Veggies to use on our Nature Table. Once dried, the kids immediately took them to the Farm Mat. They have spent a lot of time bringing in the harvest and feeding the bounty to the family of snails Bug made.
Basic Salt Dough Recipe
1 Cup Salt
2 Cups Flour
3/4 Cup Room Temp Water
1 TBSP Vegtable Oil
Bake at 200 F for several hours until dried through. Paint when dry.
For a realistic touch, we used small twigs for stems. We also used toothpicks for adding details. I was surprised how well the Salt Dough retained its modeled shape.
Note: Both puppies and almost 2 year olds like to eat the finished veggies! Keep a close eye on the little ones if you have ’em.
