Playdough is a great fine motor activity for children, especially early years and primary school. Playdough supports muscle development as well as creativity.
Here is a simple playdoh recipe to follow and try out in school or home:
Ingredients:
• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1 cup of water
• 1- 2 tbs of oil + 2 tsp creme of tartar
• glitter
• sparkly stars
• food colouring (blue/green)
Method:
- Put all ingredients into a saucepan
- Gently heat whilst stirring
- Gradually all will become sticky continue to mix
- It will become harder to stir as it forms a ball shape
- Split into two balls, add the food colouring or Brusho in one half and leave the other plain
- Leave to cool slightly then kneed for as long as you need
- Gradually mix the colours together or leave in two piles so they can be mixed through play.
Once you have made your space play dough you can play! I just used a round cutter to create the planet shape and then made a ring of play dough by using 2 different sized cutters, this left a planet and a Jupiter style ring. I love the space theme as any colours go and you can add as much sparkle as possible.
It’s easy to add other items to extend the space theme add miniature space rockets, astronauts, rocks wrapped in foil (super easy way to make space rocks!) or pebbles.
You can substitute the food colouring for Brusho powder. This can be added to the water then mixed whilst heating. Brusho is a non-toxic water based paint. It comes as a powder and can be added to play dough to increase the colour intensity.
Keep in an airtight container, if you want it to last for long pop in a tsp of creme of tartar.
