Homemade Playdough Archives

A simple homemade playdough recipe is such great thing to have on hand for those times when you get inspired explore Dr. Seuss colors in dough or any other concept or color at all. Just last week that is just what happened to me. My son and I were working on a Dr Seuss shape activity featuring Thing One and Thing Two when I decided that making playdough the color of their hair would be cool. From there my mind raced to other colors we could make. This post shares the four homemade playdough colors I decided to create.

The first color you already know from the paragraph above. We made Thing One Blue. Thing One blue is created by adding a just four quick drops to the homemade playdough base. I was worried about getting too deep a blue so, I added just one drop at a time to the mixture. When I got just the color I wanted, I stopped.

The second color we made was Fox in Socks red. We didn’t count the number of drops this time. We just added a bunch of them and stirred. The fox in Fox in Socks is deep red in color so, a bunch of red drops ended up being just right.

Our third color was Green Eggs green. I tried to think a better name for the color, but could not come up with one. It was created to go along with the book Green Eggs and Ham and it is green. Another name just wouldn’t make sense. I tried making the green homemade playdough using a quarter of the ingredients and adjusting the cooking time. The dough ended up being a little overcooked. Adding a little more dough and vegetable oil to the dough seemed to loosen it up some.

The homemade playdough recipe I use is so quick and simple. I was able to make four different colors of playdough in less than 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1 cup salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup of water1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Food coloring

Directions:

Mix water and food coloring in a bowl.
Add the flour, salt, and cream of tartar to the mixture and stir.
Place the mixing bowl covered with plastic wrap in the microwave for 2 minutes at 50% power.
Stir the mixture.
Place the mixing bowl back into the microwave for 2 ½ more minutes at 50% power.
Knead the dough when cooled.
If the dough seems dry knead a dash of flour and vegetable oil into it.

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

JDaniel had blast exploring our Dr. Seuss colors in homemade playdough I bet your children with too.

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie into children’s books.

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My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

Squish Rabbit by Katherine Battersby has become JDaniel’s favorite book. He absolutely loves to have this book read to him.

Squish is a really small bunny that seems to be overlooked by everyone, because of his size. He has other troubles too. He can’t reach balloons that float by. He can’t get people to hear he wants to share. He is really lonely.

Finally, Squish sews a friend with a needle and thread. He has a great time with him at the beginning, but there is only so much a stuffed cloth friend can do.

He tries to play with a tree, but that doesn’t work. When it doesn’t work, Squish gets mad. He is so mad that he throws a tantrum and kicks one of the apples that has fallen from the tree.

A squirrel notices that the apple is going to all into the river and tries to save it. Thankfully before the squirrel can fall into the water Squish yells, “Stop!”

Thankfully the squirrel stops and decides to play with Squish instead. Yes, that means he now has a real friend and a stuffed one to play with.

The pictures in the book are amazing. JDaniel loves the emotions that Squish conveys with his eyes and his arms. This book could easily be told by the pictures alone, but I am so glad it has words too.

What did we do?

Homemade Playdough Play with a Friend

We had JDaniel’s best friend over on Tuesday after preschool to play. They have the best time together when JDaniel isn’t in charge of all the toys and when they are played with.

To avoid a lively discussion about toys and their play times I made a batch of homemade playdough with the recipe below. I have not been successful with other recipes I have tried, but this one worked out well for me.

The boys had a great time squishing the dough and using a variety of cookie cutters to create creatures of their own.

Here is the Playdough Recipe I used:

Homemade Playdough

1 3/4 of flour

1 cup of boiling water

1/4 cup of salt

4 teaspoons of vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons of cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoons of food coloring

In a medium bowl mix all the dry ingredients. In a small bowl add the water, vegetable oil, and food coloring. When well mixed, add to the dry ingredients and let the mixture cool. Knead until smooth.

Please only link up posts that have children’s books related to them. All others will be deleted.