Fairy forest playdough

Today we've been play and pretending with a magical fairy forest. We mixed up a batch of no cook play dough (with no added extras) to make some 'snow dough'. At Christmas we picked up some Christmas pasta shapes and have been saving them for a special play activity. 

At first The Fairy randomly put the pasta trees in the playdough. Then she carefully re arranged them around the edge of the forest.

Soon The Fairy requested to have some 'people' come to live in the forest. Soon some fairies  had moved in and were having lessons and organising parties (I love how real life is reflected in pretend play).

If you like playdough  you will love this book from the brilliant Nurture Store. The Homemade Playdough Recipe Book is full of play dough recipes and a whole years worth of play dough fun for just $8.99. We are affiliates for this great book (which means we earn some commission if you buy this book at no extra cost to you). Down load it now by clicking on the picture.

Language used: squash, press, forest, wood, magic, enchanted

Other skills: Pretend / imaginative play

Playdough mini beasts (bugs)

The Fairy loves hunting for mini beasts (bugs). The other day when it was too rainy to go outside and hunt, she wanted to make some playdough mini beasts.

We took a rainbow full of dough

We rolled

pressed

and created some fabulous mini beasts (with the addition of some pipe cleaner decoration).

Amazingly pretty much as soon as we finished the mini beasts making, the sun came out. So we popped over to Grandmas garden for a bug hunt. Look what we found...

a caterpillar sunbathing on a sundial,

a worm on a leaf

a butterfly visiting a flower

a buzzy bee

a 'stripy worm'.

What's your favourite thing to make out of playdough? Do you like hunting for mini beasts (bugs)?

Union Jack playdough

After the success of our Diamond Jubilee sensory box we were after some more Jubilee themed events this week. What could be more fun than Union Jack play dough...

Rolling the white sparkly dough (I used corn flour rather than normal flour to make it extra white after reading this post)

We made a rectangle out of blue sparkly dough and then added red and white crosses. I wanted the red to look more vivid but didn't have the time to spend ages mixing playdough as I knew we were on borrowed time as 'The Frog' would soon be awake from his nap.

Then we trimmed it to make it look tidy (possibly the only tidy thing in our house at the moment!)














After we had finished I asked 'The Fairy' requested to do some more cutting. I was a bit puzzled  (I wanted to play with the playdough still !) but went with the flow.

Searching the cupboard for items to cut I found some straws.

We also cut a crown.

 'Look mummy I've made a cake - it's got candles'

Every cake needs a picnic.

Happy Jubilee weekend to everyone in the UK (and Commonwealth) :-)

Language focus
Vocabulary: flag, Queen, snip, cut, roll, red, white, blue, cake, party

Mint playdough

This play dough is perfect for spring, it smells and looks fresh.

We made some peppermint play dough using our usual recipe 

Then added some fresh mint (from Grandmas garden) 'The Fairy' thought it looked like trees

She then wanted to make a house. The holes are 'windows' and the mint is now people looking out of them

Language Focus
Vocabulary: push, squeeze, press, poke, green, mint, leaf, tree, house, window
Other skills: imaginative play

If you like play dough you will love this book from the brilliant Nurture Store. The Homemade Playdough Recipe Book is full of play dough recipes and a whole years worth of play dough fun for just $8.99. We are affiliates for this great book (which means we earn some commission if you buy this book at no extra cost to you). Down load it now by clicking on the picture.

Playdough coffee shop

After seeing this amazing idea for chocolate play dough i've been waiting for the right opportunity to use some. When 'The Fairy' asked to play 'cafe' I thought the time had come.

The raw ingredients (vanilla, strawberry and chocolate play dough see here for the recipe I use  NB playdough should not be eaten due the large amounts of salt in it).

Making cherries to go on top of the cakes and strawberry shortcake biscuits.

We even had some sprinkles (an old spice jar with sugar stars) to use when we were 'baking'

The play dough smelled so good I just had to join in and make some biscuits and cakes too

Our finished plate of goodies

'The Fairy' asked if she could be the waitress (we don't spend all our time in Starbucks- honest!). Together we made a menu and the 'The Fairy' took our orders using her clip board - great for developing literacy skills in a natural environment! I got to enjoy being served the cakes. You could extend this play idea using money, a till and even a receipt.

Language Focus
Vocabulary: names of food items- cake, biscuit, cherry, roll, cut, press
Other skills: pretend play and developing imagination, social skills- learning to order food, memory (our waitress went and got our orders and then brought them to us)