There’s many activities children aged 2-4 must be engaged in prior to picking up a pencil ✏️. A favourite amongst the children I work with is making play dough, yes that’s right, get your hands stuck in rather than buying the pre made play dough, you can make your own from ingredients that are found around the kitchen.
You will need:
1 cup of cold water
1 cup of salt
2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
3 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of corn flour
Food colouring
Instructions
Gather together all your ingredients.
Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and then slowly add water.
Mix until it forms a nice dough.
It should now be easy to pick up and mould – add more flour if it is too sticky and more water if it is too dry.
Knead it well with your hands to get all the food colouring to blend in.
Then the fun begins! You can store your play dough in an airtight container when you have finished playing.
You can add food colouring to your play dough and even a sprinkle of glitter to make it sparkly.
Add a drop or two of essential oils to make it fragranced or grains of rice for texture. Have fun experimenting with different additions.
Once your play dough is ready, you can begin to turn up the music, give your child a small ball of play dough and take part the in the play dough disco 💃.
Customise the music choice based around your child’s interest and begin. The following our examples of movements that the children enjoy within my setting and short examples of how to do these movements.
Smack it: Using the palm of your hands, flatten the dough into a pancake shape.
Squeeze it: With the dough in one hand squeeze hard.
Ball it: Using both hands, roll the dough into a ball shape.
Dive in: In turn, plunge each individual finger into a ball of dough:
Know the challenge is in your hands what dough disco movements can you create? Please post below and let me know what moves you have come up with.