Home-Made Playdough

Playdough is fun for all seasons -- and did I mention???  You can not only make your own but it's super cheap to make!

I'll give you the recipe below - and here are some easy variations for different seasons/holidays!
Pumpkin Playdough: add orange food coloring and pumpkin pie spice
Sweet & Fruity: add 2 packages dry unsweetened Kool-Aid
Sparkle Snow: no food coloring, but add a lot of clear and/or silver glitter
St. Patty's Minty Green: add green food coloring, green glitter, and mint extract
Christmas & Valentine Peppermint Twist: add red food coloring, red glitter and peppermint extract

2 cups of flour
1 cup salt
2 cups boiling water
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl. I microwave the water to boiling - easy & fast. Add the boiling water, oil and any of the extras below to customize. Stir until too sticky, then knead by hand.

Ooblek

Is it a solid or a liquid??? Fun experiment, sensory and icky project for you and your kids!
All you need is: cornstarch, water, food coloring (optional)

Add 1 part cornstarch to 1 part water. Mix with your hands and have fun!

Monster Hands

We made these this week in preschool and the kids LOVED them! Your kids might enjoy making them too! I just bought some latex free rubber gloves (in the cleaning department at Wal-Mart) and they even had blue, which made this more creative! Then filled them with anything I could think of: pasta, cotton balls, applesauce, shave cream, rice, marshmallows, popcorn, warm water, ice, etc. and tied them off. Then the kids got to touch and feel the MONSTER HANDS and guess what was inside. Great party game!

Chocolate Playdough

This is a favorite! We took the empty valentine chocolate boxes and made our own 'chocolates' to put back in with our chocolate playdough. The kids loved this one!!
1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1 cup salt

2 cups boiling water

1 tablespoon cream of tartar

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl. I microwave the water to boiling - easy & fast. Add the boiling water, oil and any of the extras below to customize. Stir until too sticky, then knead by hand.

*FYI: If the playdough seems a big sticky or wet just add more flour and knead it in!

Tie-Dye Paint

This is also often referred to as marbel paint.  I just had to post it because it's so much fun!!! It's a pretty cool way to paint paper to look like tie-dye or marbelized!Here's what you need: paper, shaving Cream, water colors (or food coloring), squigiHere's what you do:
Put the shaving cream in a tray (or cookie sheet) and flatten it with your fingers to about an inch thick. Drip different colors of the water colors on the shaving cream and spread around with your fingers (or spoon, or craft stick).
Then lay the paper on the colored shaving cream and rub the back gently with your hands to flatten and make sure the paper is covered with shaving cream.
Then you pull the paper off and squigi the shaving cream off and you have a SUPER COOL tie-dye print!

We paint paper and cut it out to look like a painted Easter egg, butterfly wings, flowers, etc. 

Puffy Paint

We can't get enough of puffy paint in our preschool! 
The kids (and teachers) love painting with it!
I like to use this for painting puffy pumpkins at Halloween time (and add a little green curling ribbon to the top stem), cupcakes to celebrate birthdays, white for Santa's beard at Christmas ... the possibilities are endless!It's so easy to make!
Mix 1 part glue to 1 part shaving cream (I eye-ball it), and add food coloring to desired color. See...I told you it was easy! ;)

Food Collage

We painted with food!

 

All we did was match the color of food with the color of paint, then stamped the painted food onto paper!

Food is for more fun than just to eat!  Play with your food!