Play D'oh!

I'm helping out with Blockette's Sunday school class until the end of the school year. Unfortunately, both of her teachers quit at a the same time. No, this was not because Blockette is such a handful. That is purely coincidental!

I grew up in a really large church and there were only 4 other kids in my Sunday school class...on a good day. There are usually around 10 kids in Blockette's class. If everyone came every Sunday there would be around 15. That's a lot of 4 year olds.

The curriculum is good, but not designed for a large class. Some of the activities include sculpting things with play doh, but there is only enough playdoh in the lesson kit for 4-5 kids. Many times the other teacher and I are left wondering what we are going to do instead of having the kids do the sculpting activity.

Then I had a "d'oh" moment. Blockette's school makes playdough for the kids to use and I have the recipe in my handy dandy recipe binder. I made 2 batches. The blue one was supposed to be purple, but I re-discovered that food coloring does not make a good purple. It ends up looking like elephant gray. I used a lot of blue coloring to get the dough that color, and it still looks battleship gray. Oh well.

The kids had a lot of fun playing and sculpting with this stuff, and no one complained about the color selection either...bonus! The dough did stick to the kids hands a bit more than the brand name stuff did, but it washed off easily with soap and water. (Note to self: do not let boys go into men's room alone or they will come back looking like they had a water fight, which they probably did.)

Another great thing about the homemade play dough is that it washes out nicely. Blockette got some of the blue clay ground into the sleeve of her white sweater. I washed it yesterday and there was no trace of anything blue. Double bonus!

PLAY DOUGH
2 c flour
1 c salt
4 t cream of tartar
2 c water
2T oil
food coloring

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large pot. Add wet ingredients and combine until there are no lumps. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and clumps together in one giant lump. By this time your arm should feel like it is going to fall off. Store in an air tight container.