PLAY DOUGH RECIPE
DRY INGREDIENTS
2 cups of white plain flour
1 cup of cooking salt
1 dessert-spoon of Cream of Tartar powder
WET INGREDIENTS
1/4 to 1/2 cup of olive oil
Food colouring according to strength required (add a drop at a time)
Water
METHOD
Mix all dry ingredients thoroughly. Separately mix well: small quantity of water
with oil and food colouring.
Mix above wet and dry ingredients together with
a wooden spoon and keep adding small quantities of more water until mixture is smooth,
even and the consistency of thick paste or custard. At this stage it will stick to
wooden spoon or fingers.
Pour into a non-stick flat metal pan, splread out and place in a hot oven for a few
minutes. The mixture will swell a little, take up surplus water and will no longer
be sticky. CAUTION: DO NOT LEAVE IN OVEN TOO LONG OR YOU
WILL END UP WITH VERY SALTY BREAD.
Take out of oven, let cool enough to touch, knead well until smooth, soft and does
not stick to your hands. Play dough is now ready to use.....have fun!
STORE in an air-tight container or plastic bag. No need to refrigerate. It will keep
for months as the salt is a preservative and the white flour is virtually dead.
If the dough should become
too moist or sticky over time, roll out onto a floured board and knead once again.
Should the dough become too dry over time, you can rejuvenate it by pushing some finger holes into
it and add a little water into them (see picture below). Store flat and when next opened the dough
will have taken up the moisture. Knead up again before use.
Some suggested basic tools to use in dough play are shown above and
now we will look at just some of the ways to use them, contributing to the learning of shapes, counting,
hand dexterity etc. Of course, the most important part for children is sharing the
activity and especially their accomplishments - encouragement and praise are great motivators!
You could start with making a ball by each rolling a little dough round and round in your palms, then
play a little game rolling them back and forth to one another. The next basic shape to make is a sausage,
rolling it back and forth on the table with both hands until it gets longer and thinner. This might be
a good time to give the child a blunt plastic knife to practise cutting up the sausage.
Using the little rolling pin comes next. If you don't have a rolling pin, try a plastic bottle filled with
water to make it heavier. Then when you have rolled a nice flat sheet together, bring out the cutters
and have fun with those. I find children love to choose, so ask them to pick the next shape and pretty
soon they will be naming the shapes confidently. Better to just start with 3 or 4 basic shapes, only
adding more once they are known well. The counting part comes in when the child puts the cut-outs
into a muffin tin.
Some play groups have a toy oven to put the "cookies" in to pretend to bake, as you can see in these N.Z.
Playcentre pictures below:
Lots of freeform dough play is wonderful and it is the right consistency for little fingers
whereas plasticine may be too stiff and hard. Just pinching bits off and putting them in a pile is fun!
If you want to go further however, you can do things like making a flat doll as under -
using a garlic press to create spaghetti-like "hair".
Many thanks to my partner Tony for his input into this page and also KJ,2, our cute little model.
BACK
|