Like they can play with it for hours. I love it when they pretend to own a restaurant. J will take my order, and then she will tell the cook, D. Or when they made animals and pretend that it's a zoo. You got the see the kind of animals they make. Most of the time I don't even know what kind of animal is it. But my favorite is .... can you guess???? It's when they leave me alone.
Let's face it. We love our children. We would do anything to protect them. We go extra mile to make them happy. We teach, we impart wisdom, we shape their personalities. We cook we clean we get dirty (from vomits and poo poo). Aaaaaand sometimes we just want to be left alone. Am I right? or am I right. I know you're with me on this. So when I needed extra time (read: leisure time) I like to let them play with their playdoh, hoping I'm not part of their pretend play. ngeeee
Downside is, Playdoh is expensive, especially when you constantly need to buy it, because your 3 year old mixed all the colors and it would end up being black playdoh, and she will make it into little pieces and pretend that it's raining playdoh and it would end up under the sofa, on the table, got stuck up with the ahem... leftover rice under the dining table ahem.... And with the way my kids play, not worth it to buy a whole lot. So I found this easy 2 steps playdough recipe online
I found it a loooong time ago. I wish to credit the owner of the recipe, but I seriously can't recall the site. Tried to Google it, couldn't find which one. Lately I seems to be forgetting a lot of things. Scaaaary. I hope I'm not losing my mind. People said it's normal to forget something after you had your babies. Well, I read that taking Vitamin B can improve your memory. Maybe it's time to start consuming them eh. During my pregnancy, I took Vitalea from Shaklee as my multivitamin, so I'm thinking of buying their B Complex.
Back to playdough recipe. It is super easy. You only need:
- 1 cup of wheat flour
- 1/2 cup of salt
- 1/2 cup of warm water
- 1 tsp of oil
- Food coloring
I don't have food coloring, so mine is white play dough . hahha
Step 1 for homemade playdough: Mix salt and warm water.
Make sure all the salts are dissolved. I made a mistake of putting everything in the bowl altogether. Ended up with a sandy-ish playdough. Is there such a word?? ahaaa. I hope you got what I mean. It's not smooth. It has a texture, like it got mixed up with sand.
Step 2 super easy playdough: Get a bowl and mix it up!
Put in flour, oil, and the salty water. If you have food coloring, you can add it in as well. I would imagine that we need to mix it pretty well prior to adding in the water. Or mix it with water, so that it would be even. Oh, and my advice is to put in the water little by little.
My mistake was I put everything in (as explained above. To my defense, that's what the initial recipe asked me to do), aaaand it is waaay too soft and a bit sticky for my taste. If this happened, don't worry. Add in more flour, again little by little. You don't want to end up having too much playdough. Dear En Sed said, waste of good flour. I say a good use of the time
Playing with playdough increase their creativity and imagination, motor skill development, social skill, communcation skill. Hey read more here. You can see a lot more ideas on playing with play dough.
So there you have it. And it is long lasting as well. Here it is after 24 hours exposed to the environment. I know it doesn't look like it, but it is still quite soft and still a fun to play with
Oh and a little lesson in chemistry, for those interested. If I get it wrong, do correct me. I love to know the reason why we use those ingredients.
Question 1: Why do we have to use warm water?
So that the protein/gluten in the flour will react with the water and the heat to form stretchy elastic mess. But, what I found out is, when I used warm water the dough is more soft. So, way to go heat and water and protein/gluten.
Question 2: What does oil do?
Keep it moist and not sticky. Though if we put in too much, it'll be too oily and messy and u have to mop your floor immediately after, aaaand wasssshhhhhh every tool. A CHORE i tell ya!!!
Question 3: Why salt?
Now I actually wonder about this first. Why do we have to put in the salt. Because that's a lot of salts!!! Like 1 quarter of a new bag of salt! In my research it says that salts act as preservative, preventing it from getting moldy. Some say it prevent toddler from eating it. But the real reason is salt is the ingredient that hold everything together, allowing the dough to expand without tearing.
Go ahead and try this Super easy play dough recipe!!!
