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Vanilla-scented ice cream playdough

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Here’s a recipe for homemade vanilla-scented playdough in pretty ice-cream shades – together with some play ideas to encourage your kids to explore and learn.

no cook playdough recipe

 

Playdough is such a wonderful material for chidren to explore as there are so many ways for them to play with it. It’s an open-ended activity so it allows them to use their imagination and be creative with what they make. It’s very good when there’s a mixed age group of children playing as they can all join in a way that suits their age and interests. It promotes language development too if you’re sat chatting about what you’re making or co-operating over sharing materials.

You can add in other resources from time to time to spark ideas for new ways to play – maybe provide some matchsticks, lollypop sticks, cake cases, bottletops or feathers. You can also use a change of location to extend the play possibilities. It’s not a very messy substance, and cleans up fairly easily if you don’t leave it to harden. (Best on hard surfaces rather than carpet though.) It would be interesting to watch how your children use playdough in the garden, in the toy kitchen or in the dolls house.

I’ve been using this family recipe to make playdough for a while but a recent post by Jen over at the The Mad House suggested using essential oils in the mixture to add scent. I loved this idea but as  I wasn’t completely sure the children playing here would keep the dough out of their mouths I’ve used vanilla essence here instead. The addition of natural food colourings produces lovely ice cream-like shades which I much prefer to the lurid shop bought colours. I also like the texture of homemade playdough and it’s so cheap and easy to make. Give it a try and I think you’ll be making your own from now on.

Here’s the recipe – using a measuring jug instead of weighing scales to make it easy.

Warm 750ml of water in a large pan. Add 375 ml of salt, 750ml of flour, 45ml of sunflower oil, 30ml of cream of tartar and 10ml of vanilla essence.

Stir the ingredients together over a low heat. Use a whisk at first to get rid of any lumps and then a wooden spoon until the dough comes together.

Remove the pan from the heat and tip the dough into a large bowl. (If you want to make several different colours you can split the dough into separate bowls at this stage and add a different colour to each bowl. )

Add a few drops of food colouring and knead for a couple of minutes until the colour is evenly spread through the dough.

Let it cool a little and then it’s ready to play with. Store in an air-tight jar and it should last for at least a couple of months.

More playdough recipes

How about a chocolate playdough recipe? Valentine’s playdough? Outer space playdough?

Cardboard box ride-on train tutuorial

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Got a long cardboard box? Here’s how to transform it into a train, for lots of role playing fun.

We used: a rectangular cardboard box, a Pringles tube, a panettone box, some coloured paper, sticky tape, scissors, a craft knife, a small plate, a felt tip pen

Wrap the tube in coloured paper. We used sticky tape throughout for all out sticking. You could use glue and could also paint the train instead, but then you’re going to have to wait for it to dry – and 3 year olds need instant gratification!

Place the tube where you want your chimney to be and draw round the bottom with your felt pen. Then cut the circle out with a craft knife (grown-ups only, of course).

Poke the tube through the hole and you have your chimney.

Cut your other box into the shape of the cab, wrap in coloured paper and stick onto the train with sticky tape

Using the craft knife cut out a square flap to make a carriage for storing cargo and passengers. make sure you leave enough room between the carriage and the cab for the driver to sit. (We discovered later that my daughter fits inside this carriage nicely!)

Now draw round a small late and cut out some circles from  coloured paper.

Stick these along the sodes of the train to make the wheels. Count tham as you go along and talk about what shape they are.

Adding spokes onto the wheels is a good opportunity to practice pencil skills.

Link up the wheels with a different coloured strip of paper . Talk about how this rectangle shape is different to the wheels.

All aboard! Ready to roll! Choo choo!

Add some props to extend the play possibilities – a drivers hat, some passengers, some parcels to deliver.

You can introduce some letters and numbers into the play by making signs for the stations you visit. How about making a train timetable and some tickets too?

We’ve been doing some train inspired art and maths play too – come back and see the next post to have a look.

Happily shared with Today’s Creative Blog.

and

Make a model house

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a cardboard mansion

a cardboard mansion

My 3 year old has been asking lots of questions about houses recently: what’s under the floor? which room is on top of this one? how many families live in a block of flats? I’m also keen to encourage her to pick up a pencil and do some mark making and drawing, as this isn’t an activity she tends to choose for herself but obviously is a skill she needs to develop. I always like to take the individual child as a starting point for any activity I’m planning – what are they interested in and what skills are they currently developing?- so with all this in mind we decided to make some model houses.

We used some cardboard boxes which we opened up flat. This gave us a clear side to draw on and it was much easier using a flat surface rather than a 3D one. We cut out a door to start with and coloured it and the roof in with wax crayons. We talked about what shapes windows are and had a look at the ones in our house. I helped my daughter cut out some rectangles from some paper and she used a glue stick to stick them on by herself.  She used a crayon to put crosses on each of the windows to make them look like the ones we have at home.  I was really pleased to see she carefully held the crayon in a palmar grip and placed the crosses right in the centre of each window – she’s improving her pencil control. She also added some beautiful flowers, which gave the opportunity to try making vertical and circular marks. Every front door needs a house number so she checked our number line and decided on a ‘3’. We then folded it all back up again and fastened it with stickytape – very simple but I think it looks great and she’s really pleased with it.

So that’s fine motor skills, mark making, decision making, numeracy, three dimensional modeling, shapes, colours, art, collage, and some ‘Mummy and me’ time – all from her current interest in houses. Amazing how many skills you can nurture in one simple activity.

straight lines and circles - developing pencil control

straight lines and circles - developing pencil control

Build your own toy town and road system

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Two pounds wisely invested in the local charity shop this morning means we are the pleased owners of a bag of trucks and cars. Raiding the craft box we had an abundance of cardboard packaging from mail order books, so we got busy creating our own town. Do you like it? The kids are most impressed with the flyover bridge system (although it’s a little precarious despite being reinforced with some extra cardboard underneath). I like the car wash. There was a bit of confusion with the traffic lights as I wasn’t sure if the red or green light went on top – you can tell I can’t drive – but kids assured me we’d got it right. Using the fold out book packaging turned out really well as it folds back down for storage at the end of the day. I think we’ll be adding extra buildings over the next few weeks. Why don’t you try making your own town?

If your child enjoys making this they might like to try a castle too.

Build a medieval castle

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a palace fit for a queen

a palace fit for a queen

My daughter visited a real castle this half-term with her grandmother so this morning she decided to make a castle of her own. She raided our craft box to find a shoe box, toilet roll tubes and an egg box – and this is what she created.

She’s delighted with it and unbeknown to her she’s been nurturing important skills whilst making it. Lots of mathematical aspects are used when junk modeling: she has visualised in her mind what she wanted to create and had to select and put together the right three dimensional objects to realise her vision. She’s been manipulating different shapes (she said the draw bridge was a ‘semi – oval’) and sizes (she had to reduce the circumference of the tower to make the egg box spire fit on top) – and problem solving too, as she had to find an alternative to glue to stick on the towers. It also gave us the opportunity for a quick history lesson as she had lots of questions about what life would have been like in a castle.

Children really learn through doing and activities such as junk modeling give them anopportunity to be creative and to experiment, whilst having fun. And she’s still playing with it now.  One of her little people has been given lots of yellow wool hair and, as Rapunzel, has  been banished to the tower.

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