Gather. Stir. Knead. Play!

Joey makes a tadpole to show part of a frog's life cycle.

Children loves to manipulate dough. They squish it through tubes or cut it into shapes. Perhaps they're chefs creating an exquisite feast or ceramicists crafting perfect coils for a new hand built pot or a naturalist recreating a leaf of animal to study. Whatever they pretend, it is always fun to have some sort of dough with which to play.

Any Internet search will reveal a plethora of play dough options. Here's one that I use; it's so good that I only need to make it once a year, if that often.

Save containers to store the dough.
Family gave Ezra Play-doh, whose
containers I saved for my own dough.

Ingredients:
1 envelop of flavored drink mix
1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of boiling water
1 tablespoon of oil

Directions:
1. Gather the ingredients
2. Stir together the ingredients. Let cool until you can handle the dough.
2. Knead the dough until it's smooth.
3. Play! Make sure to store in a tightly sealed container so that you can enjoy it for a while!

Take a moment to share some of your child's favorite shapes to make with this dough. Or, perhaps your little one made a geological landform, a model of an ancient Roman house, or some other accompaniment to your lessons - if so, share the idea!