Chinese New Year inspired Dragon playdough

Revisiting an exciting or fun event can help embed a child's learning. Last week we saw our local Chinese New Year celebrations complete with dancing lions and dragons. The Frog was very transfixed by the dancers and drums (so much so we have had several sessions of dragon dancing at home this week). To extend this experience I made some red and yellow  playdough  (the colours of the dragons and lions we had seen) and gave him some 'loose parts' to add.

We looked at pictures from Google of dancers and then he set to work making several dragons. Each time labelling the parts as  he went. 'Dragon head, dragon eye.... more dragon eye'. He wasn't always conventional about what he chose to be which part e.g. the 'googley eye's were sometimes eyes, sometimes noses  (but he had a very clear plan in his head about what he wanted each thing to be). The great thing about using 'loose parts' is it can spark creativity and imagination.

When the Fairy came home from school she saw the dragons and quick set about making her own too. I love the sequins she has chosen for ears.

Language Links: 
Vocabulary: roll, shapes (ball/ sphere, cylinder), texture (shiny/bumpy) colour (red/yellow), body parts
Other: Linking two words (e.g 'dragon's nose').

Playdough pledge # 3 - Nature dough

Take one lot of unflavoured playdough add natural 'treasures' gathered by small people, throw in a few dried pulses.

Calm, relaxing, natural playdough fun

We had planned to do 5 x sessions on the playdough pledge, but we haven't (yet!). Not sure if we'll carry it on over the weekend - we'll have to wait and see how it all pans out. We've had fun doing the things we've done!

Playdough pledge #2 playdough by numbers

We were looking to be inspired to reuse our purple dough we made yesterday for the play dough pledge when we saw some fab ideas for using wooden letters in playdough over at The Imagination tree. We don't have any  letters but we do have numbers. Cue some number fun...

Rolling

Pushing

Pressing 

Tracing

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

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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)

Orange playdough fun

I think play dough has to be one of my favourite 'inside' activities. It's simple to make, its fun and 'The fairy' loves it which means I love it too! Its a great way to develop imagination and fine motor skills. With an added bonus that we both find it relaxing (a bit like kneading bread or using clay). So this morning when it appeared that we both had got out of the wrong side of bed (largely due to lack of sleep as 'The frog' is teething) a play dough session seemed to be in order. As 'The fairy' had just had a clementine as a post breakfast snack we commandeered the peel and set to work on the easiest play dough recipe in the world - with a citrus twist.

The play dough recipe below was given to me by my wonderful friend and collegue D, who is Portage worker .... (as an aside the Portage workers I have had the joy to work alongside have been a very talented and inspirational bunch - they are all very special people and have taught me lots especially about sensory play).


Very easy playdough
1 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of salt
1 cup of boling water (just from the kettle)
1 table spoon of cream of tartar
1 table spoon of oil (this makes it nice and stretchy)




Mix it all up, give it a bit of knead and away you play.

There are loads of things you can add to make the sensory experince different... food colouring, flavouring or a tiny bit of essential oil (NB make sure that it is a non toxic one as some can be toxic) for a different smell, bits to make it give a different texture (lentils, porridge oats) glitter for added sparkle or flowers for a natural touch. When adding ingredients I usually omit a bit of another similar ingredient (e.g. if I'm adding food colouring I leave out a bit of water, flavoured oil then I omit a bit of olive oil or if I'm adding porridge I leave out some flour). The basic mix keeps well in a sealed container in the fridge for a bit (if the there are added 'foody' bits then it doesn't keep as well).

As we had an orange theme we used some food colouring and added orange oil to give an olfactory dimension. We snipped up clementine peel to poke in. After a root around in the cupboard I found some lentils and dried citrus peel to add as well.

Today I encouraged 'The fairy' to use other utensils rather than the favourite rolling and cutting and so we raided the kitchen for interesting looking items.

We squeezed

and banged














and pressed

and pushed












and sprinkled












and finished with some 'pizza cakes'

I love watching The Fairy come up with ideas in play. She often makes worms when we play with playdough with 'no cutters'. I wonder if today she chose 'pizza cakes' because of the food related materiels she had available.

Language Focus
Vocabulary: roll, hit, push, squeeze, sprinkle, smell, orange
Other skills: fine motor skills and imaginative play