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DIY: Play Dough

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My play dough making days have taught me three things:
-I don’t like the cooked kind.  I always burn it or it burns me.
-No recipe calls for enough flour.  Why is that?
-Things that are going to be ruined by children should not call for weird/expensive ingredients

Couldn’t find a recipe that fit my requirements, so I invented my own.  Makes great mold-able play dough (apparently also fun to eat-why child, why???) that lasts for quite a long time, especially when kept primarily in the fridge.  And the best part is that it is made up completely of items already found in your kitchen (alum? really?!? who has that just lying around?).

The BEST Play Dough

Ingredients:
1/4 cup salt
1 1/4 cup flour (amount of flour may vary slightly depending on altitude)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 T vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
food coloring

Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl.    Set aside

Boil water in microwave. Remove from microwave once it has started to boil (I realize you guys aren’t idiots, I just wanted to be clear).  Add baking soda, vegetable oil and food coloring to water.  I am generous with the food coloring.  I like the colors to be dark.  Let the water cool down enough that you can touch it.  If you don’t let it cool, your play dough will end up grainy-believe me.

Add the water mixture to the flour and salt combination.  Stir/knead adding more flour as needed until it isn’t sticking to your hands anymore.  Let the dough cool completely. Play time!

Store in Tupperware or be eco friendly and store in old cottage cheese/sour cream containers.  Lasts longer in refrigerator.

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Fine Motor Task Cards for Kids

I don’t know why Pinterest just suddenly decided I needed to see all the content about task cards and task boxes for kids, but these ideas are great for the classroom to keep in centers or have on hand for early finishers. You can also use them at home as quiet bags or boxes for kids to use when younger siblings might be sleeping, or in the car for a non-screen activity. 

Let’s take a look at some fine motor skill task cards and how you can use them to teach kids skills while they play. 

Pre-K Pages has a nice set of playdough task cards you can use in boxes or bags with a little tray (or they can just work on the table if they are sitting at a table). Working with clay or play dough is a great fine motor skill exercise, or you can add these to your playdough center if you have one to give them a little bit of direction while they work. 

Teaching Mama has a bunch of great ideas for fine motor task boxes, from practicing working a glue bottle to threading beads, using clothespins or scissors, dropping water, finger painting and more. There’s a free printable that shows all the task options she talks through in the post if you want to make your own little boxes, or just keep these ideas on hand when you’re ready to add some fine motor fun to your days. 

One of the ideas she mentions in that post is working with a hole punch, and Early Learning Ideas has a whole bunch (the urge to write “hole bunch” is strong) of ideas for printables that help kids practice hole punching, whether it’s a strip with circles on it for them to punch or pictures that include circles for punching, these ideas make it a little more fun to practice this important skill.

My Happy Place Teaching has a whole post about using fine motor task boxes in kindergarten, and her paid resource includes more than 100 task ideas with printables. But if you don’t need 100 boxes you can still get some good ideas from this post about different tasks to include and why and when you can use them. She also mentions using them in the morning while you’re busy with kids coming in at different times, which is a great idea. 

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