Last week, I determined to try something I had never done before. I decided my son and I would make homemade playdough. I know it’s not a great feat, but remember, I’m trying to spend more time with my kids and this sounded relatively easy and fun. As I browsed the web looking for a good recipe, I came across a great post by Tipnut.

In her post, she included ten different homemade playdough recipes to choose from. As interesting as they all looked, I finally chose the first one because it looked simple and I had all the ingredients.

Here’s where I had a lot of fun. I didn’t tell David what we were going to be making, only that we needed flour, salt and a few other ingredients. Of course, he thought we were making cookies or cake. I really kept him guessing.

At the end he still wasn’t sure what we were doing until I whispered it in his ear. Then he was ecstatic because he loves playdough. And yes, he picked pink when I asked him what color we should use to make whatever we were making.

Once we were finished, the first thing that crossed my mind was how I was going to keep the kids from fighting over how much playdough belonged to each one of them.

The solution: Since the recipe made enough for two kids to each get a baseball sized ball of dough, I took Ziploc bags and wrote their name on each bag. Then I divided the dough and put half in each bag before giving them any of it. This has worked out great because they feel ownership of only the portion that is in their own bag.

I also wanted to try to keep them in one place while playing with the playdough and make clean up easier. Therefore, I found that by letting them use their placemats as their “playdough stations,” it helps them keep their playdough to themselves and it’s easy to wipe off for clean up.

To top it all off, I’m still loving this project. They have played with this stuff so much in the last few days it has given me some time to catch up on a few things around the house.

Kids absolutely amaze me sometimes at their ability to just play, create and use their imaginations.

I think we miss out on that sometimes. Maybe we should try just playing more often too. What do you think? It sure couldn’t hurt.

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4 Comments

• Jenn @ Beautiful Calling says:

  June 22, 2009 at 7:27 am

  Oh, I have never made home-made playdough before but keep thinking I should, though at 2, Chloe has a tendancy to eat everything.

  This week I have been working on limiting my “working” and playing more. So far so good
  Jenn @ Beautiful Calling’s last blog post..Sizzling Summer Product: Jack and Lily Sandals

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• JOY says:

  June 22, 2009 at 12:10 pm

  Oh I’m so going to use playdough as my craft of the week next week! Thanks for the link and the tips!

  JOY’s last blog post..Establishing the New Habit

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• Britt says:

  June 23, 2009 at 7:46 pm

  You know, I’d love to do this….but for some reason the smell of homemade play doh makes me gag…

  I don’t know why….lol.

  Good job!

  Britt’s last blog post..Bath Time Color Soap

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  • Amanda says:

    June 23, 2009 at 11:04 pm

    Oh no. I don’t guess the smell bothered me. Maybe one of the other recipes would smell differently.

    Reply

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