Burning Daylight: Homemade Playdough
This week we’re going to go back to an older series of activities I shared with the intent of actually completing them and then, my good intentions were lost somewhere in the beginning of July. Remember a few weeks ago I shared recipes for bubbles, play dough and sidewalk paint and chalk?
This is the set of activities the kids and I are going to tackle this week, of course all this hinges on the kids not killing each other first. My kids aren’t fighting about the typical kid issues of one child “looking” at the other or “he touched me”, no my kids are fighting because one is obsessed with Transformers and “It’s so irritating!” Is it irritating like listening to hours and hours of discussion about what to buy at the Webkinz shop? Irritating like that?
Okay so we all need some distraction.
If you’re playing along at home I’ve had some feedback on these ideas from the comments. I’ll sum them up for ease here.
1. Patty suggests coloring your play dough with paste food coloring from the cake decorating section of the craft store for more brilliant colors. She also makes “fossils” with her kids by making impressions in balls of gray play dough and then baking them hard.
2. Andrea added a recipe for slime and you know, my house just sold so I’m feeling adventurous. Why not?
3. Anonymous says we can put glitter into our play dough for extra sparkle. This might be fun to do with this clever idea for coloring play dough we looked at. I’m trying it with playgroup this week.
4. Anne B. suggests foam brushes and rollers to use with your chalk paint and Laurie uses squeeze bottles from the dollar store.
5. Dodi used washable paint instead of food coloring for the stain prevention. She also says, “Tip: Don’t combine all the water/cornstarch cups first and then add the color one by one. The longer the unmixed water/cornstarch cup sits the harder it is to mix.”
6. Flydaddy and his kitchen cupboard would like to remind us that storing our bubble solution in a milk jug is not advisable as it is too thin and will leak. He suggests using a more heavy plastic container, like the ones used to store windshield washer fluid. My kitchen cabinet says, “Thanks!”
I predict at least 5-10 hours of daylight burned with this set of projects and hopefully two small lives saved from the ravages of summer vacation burn-out.
