Dough Experiment 6 Jello Playdough

 Jello Playdough

My expired Jello

 

Yikes, it's sticky.  Baby boy isn't going to like that.

Very unfortunate.  I have to clean this up?

 

I'm turning this into chopstick fun. 
That way N doesn't have to touch it with his hands.

The layout so he can pick up the dough with chopsticks

 

Into his front loader, THEN into the bowl

He even wanted to recover it from the ground with the chopsticks. Cute!

 

Choppers!

 

 

Playdough with Jello sounded interesting to me.  It would have a vibrant color, and would smell yummy.  I even had an expired box in the pantry, so I wouldn't be wasting, and it wouldn't even cost me a trip to the grocery store.  Ok, I thought, I'll give it a try.

 

After making it on the stovetop, I discovered it is sticky, quite a bit more sticky than most playdoughs. This is something to keep in mind while considering making it.  The vast majority of toddlers hate having sticky, dirty fingers, some more so than others.  Nick is somewhere in between, but I would say initially this was way stickier than even he would like (it did firm up a bit after setting on the counter for about 20 minutes after being cooked), so I decided to use some kids chopsticks that a friend had given me for Nick.  I hadn't used them before with Nick, because I thought they would be too difficult for him to use (he's 36 months at present), but I figured worse comes to worst I could just show him how to pick up the dough by piercing it.  I want to flat out admit I GREATLY underestimated my child's abilities.  I show him once how to put his fingers in and how to move them up and down and off he went.  He called them "snippers" like scissors, then I told him they were called chopsticks so he renamed them "choppers.". I placed different sized dough balls on a cookie sheet for him to pick up and transfer to a bowl.  Since this was the day after we had done the Mud Dough, he wanted to transfer the dough balls into a front loader with the chopsticks then dump them into the bowl.  He even used the chopsticks to pick up dough that had fallen on the ground.  He loved it.  A cool bonus was that he now loves using them at dinner occasionally too, when the food is the right size.

 

The verdict: I/Nick loved the chopstick aspect of the activity which I would definitely do again.  I think I thought the smell and color of the dough was cool, but honestly Nick probably would have enjoyed the chopstick part with any dough.  I'm not overly keen on using food- food, like Jello or cake mix in playdough. I mean what for? It's wasteful (unless it's expired like the jello and cake mix I used) and for younger kids it can be flat out confusing whether or not it's edible.  Then there was the stickiness factor, less appealing to the child, and parent who has to clean it.  And it turned my wooden spoon pink (i didn't really care that much, but use a metal one if you have one.  And the color won't run or stain anything once it is cooked.  This is true of all doughs and coloring methods, I have found.). 

Bottom line: If you are dying to try something different, go ahead, but there are better ones to do first in my opinion like:

Galaxy Dough

Cloud Dough

Mud Dough

 

Recipe (originally found here)

 

• Flour 1 cup
• Salt 2 tbsps
• Cream of Tartar 2 tbsps
• Cooking oil (canola, vegetable, for example) 2 tbsps
• Water 1 cup
• Packet of jello 1.3 oz (dry, not prepared)

 

Combine all of the ingredients in a large pot and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it pulls and thickens. Once it has become a big round blob.  Set it on wax paper to cool.  Once it cools, knead it until it has the proper consistency.

Dough Experiment 5 Oobleck (or Gloop)

I figured this was the perfect "dough"  for Dr. Seuss's birthday: homemade Oobleck.  I did not grow up reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck, although I have read about all of his other later works.  Guys, it is weird.  I know what you are thinking "Thank you Captian Obvious, all of his books are weird" but this one is really weird, not two year old material, so I just showed him some of the pictures, and he got the idea: green goo.

I cannot express to you how much fun my son had playing with it, so I won't even try.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.  It is definitely messy. Very, very messy.  And I am not afraid to make a mess, but you need to be outside weather permitting with swimsuits and a hose, or plop your munchkin in the bathtub like I did.  It is however, extremely easy to clean up, you just wipe it away. It's just runny is all. I would 100% make it again and recommend you do so too.

Recipe (found here)

1 1/2 cup- Cornstarch
1 cup- Water
A few drops of food coloring (optional)

Note: this keeps for quite a while.  I had it in a sour cream container for two weeks before we used it. I opened it up, spooned it into a bowl, and added very little water and it was good to go.

Dough Experiment 3 Flourless Playdough

 Flourless Playdough

This playdough has a gorgeous, silky smooth texture. It definitely feels different from your flour based playdough which added to its appeal for me to try it out with Nicholas.  If you have friends, kids, or little ones in your care who are allergic to flour than this for sure is a wonderful option for you.   I added a touch of yellow food coloring, and a teaspoon of lemon extract to give it that fresh citrus-y smell, just for fun, it certainly isn't necessary.  

I like themes when we do these sort of activities. We lead up to the project, in this case the playdough, with a few books, toys, anything that is appropriate to the theme. But again, you don't have to, just manipulating the playdough is a wonderful experience in and of itself.  I went with an alphabet theme (see below).

Here's the recipe (found here at an adorable blog called Messy Preschoolers)

• 2 cups of baking soda
• 1 cup of cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups of water (if you want to add food coloring and/or extract, add it to the water)

Add the baking soda and cornstarch to a pot. Add the water mixture to it and stir it up (hint: metal spoons are easier to clean). Cook over medium heat stirring all the while. When it forms into a ball, take it out of the pot and let it cool a little then knead.

The verdict: Nick enjoyed himself with this activity and playdough. He played with it around 20 minutes or so, not bad.  It is much stickier than most playdoughs I've made so far which made clean up less fun.  It was runnier (although not runny),  it ripped easily, and kind of gooped up and over the letter cookie cutters not really holding its form.  Nick, like most toddlers, gets annoyed when something is too sticky on his hands, and this definitely had that feeling.  This is not one that I would rush to prepare again, because of the stickiness factor, but Nicholas had fun all the same.

Definitely exploring the texture, ripping, kneading, squishing the dough.

Perfect place for a child to practice using a knife.

Tunes

Dough Experiment 1 Cloud Dough

Cloud Dough
Today, we kicked off our dough experiment with Cloud Dough.  I found the recipe here.  I  have to say it is lovely to play with.  It consists of only flour and baby oil.  It is soft and silky with that trademark baby (talcum powder) smell.  The wonderful thing about Cloud Dough is that it holds its shape much like wet sand. It is great for packing into little cups, bowls, measuring tools, and sand toys.  Your little one can make prints in it with his hands, stamps, or cookie cutters.

Nicholas played with it for 30 minutes (a toddler eternity) and only stopped because I told him we were ending the activity. I learned from the non-cooking cooking that it is best to end before boredom/over-stimulation begins and then the inevitable mess ensues. 

He loved the Cloud Dough and I did too. Preparation was easy (only two ingredients required) and no cooking or even dyeing involved, and furthermore clean up is a breeze. It wipes off anything (floor, table, child) with the swipe of a wet towel. It will get dust on clothes though, so after we finished I took off his jammies before letting him loose into the living room.

Make some yourself. 

Recipe:  in a large container mix 4 cups flour and half cup baby oil (double the recipe if more than one child is playing). 

The end. It's that easy.

To store, I simply put the lid on the plastic container he was playing with it in (a plastic Tupperware/Rubbermade sort of to-go container).

Ingredients



Moldable clumps that really hold their shape



Feeling the silky texture

and measuring it out.
Such fun!