We made a deluxe festive playdough this morning using scents that remind us of the festive season.
This really is so easy to make – my two-year-old loved adding and mixing in all of the ingredients.
To make this playdough, we:
- Practised number skills by counting and measuring in ingredients (eg 1 cup of flour)
- Strengthened fine-motor skills by mixing, squeezing in the orange scent, making handprints in the playdough, kneading the dough
- Explored colour by adding different food dye and different glitters
- Practised pincer-grip (useful for writing) when playing with the playdough, poking holes in it and moving toys in and out of it
- Experimented with changing states of materials – by adding water to solid ingredients we created a different texture
- Put our engineering skills to the test by trying to build an igloo out of the playdough for the wooden penguin 🐧
There’s no need to bake this playdough – simply mix the ingredients together and it’ll be ready within minutes! And if you add the glycerine it’ll be so silky smooth.
All you’ll need is:
- 1 cup of plain flour
- 1 tbsp cream of tartar
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1/4 cup of salt
- 3/4 cup of water
- Scents (cinnamon, nutmeg or orange)
- Food colouring (red, green or blue)
- Glitter (optional)
- Glycerine (optional)
Simply mix the first 4 ingredients (flour, cream of tartar, oil & salt) until combined. Also add any scents you fancy using – sprinkle in some cinnamon or squeeze in some fresh orange juice from an orange. Nutmeg would also work well!
Add the food colouring of your choosing to the water and then SLOWLY add the water, bit by bit, mixing as you go – until you get the perfect consistency. You may not need all of the water so add sparingly.
If you want it to be quite a glossy playdough then add a drop of glycerine to make it shiny.
Finally, add any objects you wish (eg glitter, beads, stars etc).
We made several batches in different colours – and I’d recommended you do the same! It’s such a lovely consistency and keeps in a bag for a long time so you can use it over and over again.
Happy playing!
weeSTEMs 