Homemade Play-Doh and Pebbles

I recently took out some play-doh I received as a party favor to see what Clara would think about it. Sure enough, she ended up putting it in her mouth. It occurred to me, what the heck is in this stuff? Since all of the ingredients are not listed and it was made in China, I sought out an alternative and found some recipes for homemade play-doh with natural food dyes. Foods such as raspberries, blueberries, and turmeric work great!

I started out with blueberries. Isn’t this a pretty color?!

The next step was to see what Clara would do with it. She proceeded to carry it to the table, so she could stand on the chair and squeeze and poke it. I should have known.

There were some decorative glass pebbles in the center of the table that she beckoned for, which added a whole other dimension to this activity.

 

When she dropped a pebble on the table, it made such a glorious sound that I grabbed a glass jar to add to this sensory experience. Since she also liked the sound of the glass jar against the table, we moved to the carpet to avoid the sound of breaking glass. She loved to drop the pebbles in the glass jar, so I thought we could count the pebbles too.

Of course little crumbles of play-doh dropped on the carpet. It was time to clean up the little pieces. Great for finger dexterity!

I’d like to carry it around now mommy… whoa, this is wobbly!

Back to the table!

How about some squatting/balance practice.

Overall, this activity lasted for well over an hour. She was so focused the entire time and napped for about 3 hours that afternoon. It must have worn her out! She explored a lot in this activity, from decision making to exercise, physics, dexterity, sound, counting, to cleaning up. Phew! That’s a lot of stuff to get out of play-doh and pebbles!