For arts and crafts today we made homemade playdough. Here is an excellent pictorial tutorial on how to make your own playdough.

Matthew helping me to stir the dough:

Coloring the dough:

I gave each child a tray to play on the floor. This is my attempt to control the potential mess. Having a tray makes the mess more manageable.  Here’s a picture of Emmie happily playing with the dough:

Andrew chopping the dough:

Matthew kneading the dough:

It’s interesting to note that most children make animals out of the play dough, but my children seem to stick to the food theme.  Andrew rolls a dough into a ball and tells me that it’s a “meatball.”  Emmie rolls her dough flat to make “pancakes.” Matthew chops his dough into lots of tiny pieces and tells me that he’s “chopping meat” like I do with a Chinese cleaver.  The children eventually “made” popsicles, corn dogs, and ice cream.

Along the food theme, Calissa thought the play dough looked pretty enough to eat - as soon as I gave her some, she popped it in her mouth! Even though it is completely safe to ingest, it sure doesn’t taste good. She was in for a shock and cried.  After I calmed her down, she refused to touch the dough again.