Tuesday Tips: Homemade Playdough and Bubbles
Welcome back to Tuesday Tips! Today we’re going to teach you how to make homemade playdough and bubbles! This is a great chance for your children to have an active role in the kitchen. By helping you cook, you can teach them to follow directions, count and use fractions, measure and discover textures.
Playdough helps to increase a child’s fine motor skills and encourages imagination and creativity. Allow them to use cookie cutters or their hands to form letters, numbers and shapes. Colors and counting are other great lessons to teach by using playdough! Can you tell I want to be a homeschool mom? 😉 Let’s get started!
Playdough
Yields: 1 ball of dough
Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
Warm water- 1 cup
White flour- 1 cup
Vegetable oil- 2 teaspoons
Salt- 2 teaspoons
Cream of tartar- 2 teaspoons
Jello- 1 box (3 ounces) (hint: pick a flavor you love because this playdough will smell!)
In a medium saucepan, have your child combine the above ingredients until the mixture is smooth and there are no lumps. Place the saucepan over medium heat and stir occasionally. This part takes several minutes but the dough will start to thicken and become a ball. Allow the dough to cool in the refrigerator. You will also want to store it in the refrigerator each time after they play with it so it does not harden.
Bubbles are another great learning tool! They help children develop hand/eye coordination as they chase the bubbles and try to pop them. You can also talk about shape, gravity and counting when playing with bubbles.
Bubbles
Yelds: About 6 cups
Time: 5 minutes
Ingredients:
Water- 6 cups
Cornstarch- 1/2 cup
Dawn dish soap- 1/2 cup
Baking powder- 1 tablespoon
Glycerin- 1 tablespoon (This can be found near baking supplies at the grocery store or at your local craft store by the Wilton products)
Mix the ingredients in a large container or bucket. You want to mix slowly and create as few bubbles as possible. Let the mixture sit for 2 hours. Create your own bubble wands using string and straws, pipe cleaners, or metal wire. If you want colored bubbles, add some food coloring. You can see we made purple bubbles in the picture above.
Have fun and share what you make over at our SLPco Fan Group on Facebook!
Xoxo,
Kimberlee
