Two Kinds of Snow Dough

There has been a lot of buzz about Snow Dough lately!!! You ask, "What is Snow Dough?", basically it is White Play Dough.  There are a lot of recipes floating around claiming to be the best recipe for Snow Dough and we tried a few of them.  It came down to two recipes and one that was ultimately our favorite! Keep reading to find out our Favorite Snow Dough!  My daughter and I had a lot of FUN playing with Snow Dough and here are some of our creations:  snowmen, snow snails, and snow caterpillars!  It is definitely fun to add pipe cleaners, buttons, beans, and beads!!!

The Snow Dough pictured on the left is from Family Fun Magazine and you can click here for the recipe. This recipe makes a nice modeling compound and it is made with flour as its main ingredient.  It claims if you put white tempera paint in it that it will make it white,  but not as white as our favorite! This recipe is a cook play dough recipe.

Our Favorite Snow Dough:

The Snow Dough on the right is from the The Imagination Tree (one of my favorite blogs!!!) and you can click here for the recipe.  This recipe uses corn starch (or corn flour) for its main ingredient which makes it a wonderful bright white!  I believe it is the whitest of all the recipes we tried.  This dough is much more smooth and silkier which is always a plus! (it could be the addition of glycerin)  We definitely enjoyed this recipe the best! Oh, and more..... this recipe is is a no-cook play dough recipe and Gluten Free!

With both recipes you can add iridescent glitter and snowflake sequins which adds a sparkly touch!  Both recipes make a great sensory experience for working out tiny fingers.  So whatever ingredients you have on hand I'd suggest you try one of these fab recipes for Snow Dough!

We had so much fun with Snow Dough we decided to pack up some snow dough for our friends along with the accessories of pipe cleaners, beads, beans, toothpicks, and some snowflake sequins.  Our friends had a blast with this and my daughter played with her snow dough for three days straight! Snow Dough makes some great pretend snow play for those of you out there who don't have any snow!!!

Hope you have fun with Snow Dough too! I'm sure you will!!! Let me know if you find (or have) a secret recipe for Snow Dough that you and your children enjoy!

Pipe Cleaners, Googly Eyes and Play Dough

We made these aliens/insects/creatures from colorful play dough,  pipe cleaners, and googly eyes.   We received a great fun pack of these from Craftprojectideas.com!!!  We had a lot of FUN and admired our sculptures long after they were made! By adding the pipe cleaners and googly ideas, it added a whole new dimension to our play dough! I know we will be doing this again!  Be sure to check out 34 Ways to Play With Play Dough from Hands On: As We Grow for some more wonderful ideas to bring excitement to your play dough!

What Creative Things Have You Done With Play Dough???
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More Inspiration To Make Play Dough Monsters/Aliens/Creatures:

Feather and Googly Eye Monsters from The Artful Parent

Not So Scary Play Dough Monsters from Pink and Green Mama

Play Dough, Craft Sticks and Wiggly Eyes from Walnut Acre

Play Dough Monsters from Happy Home Fairy

More Play Dough Monsters from I Can Teach My Child

Even More Play Dough Monsters from Paper Crafts Connection

This post is linked to:
Monster Linkie Party, Kids Art Explorers

Happy Birthday Eric Carle!

Today we made some Very Hungry Caterpillars with our Microwave Kool Aid Play Dough!!! The recipe is in my last post here.  Wishing Eric Carle a Happy Birthday again on his real Birthday! I can't imagine a world without his wonderful books! What are you doing to celebrate?

Most of our inspiration to make these caterpillars comes from this wonderful stuffed Hungry Caterpillar that my daughter absolutely loves!

Be sure to check out our post here on Two Activities inspired by Eric Carle's book Little Cloud!
***Also be sure to check out the other wonderful Eric Carle activities linked up to that post here! (There are over 82 of them!)

Microwave Kool Aid Play Dough

We made play dough and love this recipe from Cassie's preschool! It says you can add a scent, but we used unsweetened kool aid for the scent and color of the play dough. I like the idea that it can be made using the microwave too.  We don't drink a whole lot of kool aid here, but have used it for homemade popsicles. Some of the flavors add a nice scent to the play dough too. I don't know if C was fond of all the scents, but it was a fun way to mix up the recipe a bit.

Here is the recipe:

(we divided it in half to make more colors)

2 Cups Flour

1 Cup Salt

2 Tablespoons Oil

4 teaspoons Cream of Tartar

2 Cups Water

Food coloring/Scent (We used unsweetened kool aid)

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the oil and water in a microwave safe bowl until it is almost boiling.  Add the food coloring. (we did not add food coloring for color--- we added the kool aid  powder with the dry ingredients) Mix the liquid and the dry ingredients together. Once the mixture has cooled, knead the dough until it becomes smooth and soft.

Here are the flavors/colors of kool aid that we use for our kool aid play dough: Cherry, Orange, Lemonade, Lemon-Lime, Ice-Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and Grape. ***For the Lemonade color we use added a little yellow food coloring because it was so light. Grape is a little dark, but the scent is good.

Here is C mixing the dry ingredients and the Ice-Blue-Raspberry Lemonade powder for blue play dough.

Here is C carefully mixing in the wet ingredients! (Careful because it is HOT!)

After the play dough kool aid cooled, we knead the play dough and it was ready for playing!

Here are some play dough snails in each color with tooth picks and googly eyes added in! Cassie's favorite scent was the Cherry! This was the best, I agree!

Here are her play dough monsters and C found some popsicle sticks to add in to the FUN!

We've been having some more kool aid fun so stay tuned for some future posts!

This post is linked to:

No Time For Flashcards

Craft Schooling Sunday

Monster Linkie Party

Play Dough (Play Doh) Snails

On Easter we were at Grandfather's house and he always has a ready supply of Art supplies on hand: crayons, paper, markers , glue, scissors, and play dough (Play Doh)!! No, we did not make play dough... we just enjoyed playing with it, smelling it, and tasting it! (I always catch my daughter eating it---good thing it is non-toxic!)  Next time we'll need to make some edible homemade play dough! We ended up making a whole family of snails!!!  Most kids Love making SNAKES and this is a great activity to follow up with after making a zillion snakes.

To create snails we started out by making a snake or coil which Cassie has become quite good at!

Next we simply shaped our snakes into spirals. Start at one end and slowly pinch the rest of the snake around it and squeeze around it to keep it together. This took a little skill...but she got the hang of it!

Leave a little end of the spiral out for the head and smash it down so it will stand up.  Lastly, add some eyes and a mouth.

Cassie really enjoyed this simply and sweet activity!  It is always fun to make a large quantity of anything! Love the winking pic! This girl is proud of all the snails we made!

This snail activity goes well with a book about a snail we have read: The Biggest House in the World by Leo Lionni. Also, the past year we have been collecting snails whenever we go to the pond near our house!  We do put the snails back! I'm sure we'll be making more snails during our next play dough session! Making snails is a great skill to be able to practice and to apply that knowledge to eventually create a coil pot!

WHAT FAVORITE THINGS DO YOUR CHILDREN CREATE OUT OF PLAY DOUGH???

This post is linked to:

NO TIME FOR FLASHCARDS
SHOW AND TELL
IT'S PLAYTIME
CHILD CENTERED ART PARTY
HIGH PAW
FOR THE KIDS FRIDAY
PRESCHOOL CORNER
THE PLAY ACADEMY
KIDS GET CRAFTY