Christmas Playdough

I made play dough for the first time. What a great experience!  I used the recipe from My Montessori Journey, and drew lots of inspiration from all the fabulous play dough ideas presented on Counting Coconuts.

It didn't take long to make the dough (about 10 minutes or so). I added glitter, lots of green food coloring, a little cinnamon and a lot of vanilla. The final result was soft, sparkly and aromatic....so much better than anything you could buy at the store.

I knew it was worth the extra effort to make it when, after playing with the dough in complete silence for several minutes, Big Brother said, "mmmmm....I love the way this smells! It smells like frosting!"

On the other hand, Big Brother has also said several times, "play dough is not suppose to be shiny." Sensory overload? Perhaps I'll leave out the glitter next time.

Here are some pictures from our play dough adventures. We made Christmas trees!

• Our "ornaments" were made by cutting apart old Mardi Gras beads. It was a great cutting exercise and fine motor activity.
• After we were done making Christmas trees, we hid the ornaments in the dough and made a game out of finding them. This is a great game for strengthening those hand muscles.
• Little Brother also had fun practicing his counting. How many ornaments did we hide? How many are still left?