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Sand Play Dough

February 15, 2011 by Anna Ranson

The beach theme is still going strong and C has still been enjoying her sea-side small world play. I had an idea to incorporate some play dough into the play, so we made up a batch of easy-peasy no cook play dough and turned it into sand dough, perfect for beach play!

This is what we did. First we made some dough using this recipe that I tweaked from the last time we used it.


Easy No-Cook Play Dough Recipe:
* 1 cup of salt
* 2 cups of plain flour
* 2 tbsp oil
* 2 tbsp cream of tartar
* 1.5 cups boiling water
* few drops of food colouring and/or flavouring
* few drops of glycerine (for extra shine, stretch and smoothness)

 We chose yellow colouring to represent sand. To this basic dough we added 1 cup of real sand and half a cup of rice and it became wonderfully tactile and interesting. You could be creative and ransack your cupboards for something else to add here if you don’t have sand or rice. Try oatmeal, couscous, red lentils, rock salt, herbs, cloves, macaroni. (We have tried most of these and they all work a treat!)

 It took a little while to fully incorporate the sand into the dough, but the rice went in easily. We found the shells and glass pebbles from the small world scene and she had a wonderful time pushing them into the dough to make impressions, decorating little “sandcastles” and sticking flags on the top.

 She spent a long time arranging the shells and then counted them.

 She “needed” (insert urgent toddler voice!) more play dough, so I gave her the other half of the dough that I was going to make into chocolate dough later, and she set about decorating that too.

 The table quickly turned into a beach scene with mini cocktail umbrellas (£1 in Sainsbury’s party section) sitting on top of the little sand sculptures.

 Oh how I love miniature things.

 These pebbles are “hiding” in what looks like an Italian calzone sandwich.

This play dough is now stored in a zip-loc bag and is added to the little collection of flavours, textures and colours. The longest my play dough has lasted in the past is about 7 months, so we shall see if this no-cook method stands the test of time. We have some delicious chocolate dough to share tomorrow!
This activity is good for:
* strengthening the little hand muscles for fine motor development
* imaginative play and creativity
* language and vocabulary
* counting, ordering, shape, size, spatial awareness (making things fit)
* knowledge and understanding of the world: beach, seaside, sand, pebbles, shells etc
* multi-sensory play



This idea is shared at: http://www.abcand123learning.com/ and http://childhood101.com/ center>Best toys for toddlers

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Filed Under: Creativity, Fine Motor Development, Imaginative Play, Messy Play, Playdough, Sensory Tagged With: Play Dough, Sensory Play

« Cookie Cutter Heart Printing
Chocolate Play Dough »

Comments

  1. Stephanie says

    February 15, 2011 at 10:27 pm

    Yay I am the 100th follower! Neat 🙂
    I LOVE this idea! We live near the beach and this will be a perfect idea for these last dreary days of winter to entertain my lil monkeys 🙂

  2. Anna @ The Imagination Tree says

    February 15, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    Yay indeed! I’m very pleased to have 100 followers, thank you so much!

  3. jenny @ let the children play says

    February 16, 2011 at 12:22 am

    I love this idea – I’m going to make some tomorrow with our preschoolers 🙂

  4. RedTedArt says

    February 16, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Wow! LOVE The idea of adding sand and rice – what a great way to make it truly tactile! A great activity for the younger ones too – my 15 month old would love it!!!

    Maggy x

  5. Rashi@memetales.com says

    February 18, 2011 at 1:46 am

    I love your creative idea of mixing sand and rice and will try it too.

  6. littlewondersdays says

    February 20, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    Fun! I like the glass beads and the umbrellas.

  7. Darcey says

    February 21, 2011 at 12:02 am

    Great idea for play-dough. I hadn’t thought of putting sand or rice in it to make it textured. I’ve linked up to your post on my weekly favorites here: http://play2grow.blogspot.com/2011/02/weekly-favorites-for-february-20-2011.html I’ve also linked up to your chocolate play-dough post and your baby play mirrors post.

  8. Anna @ The Imagination Tree says

    February 21, 2011 at 12:34 am

    Thank you! And thanks for linking me to your favourites Darcey 🙂

  9. Christie - Childhood 101 says

    February 21, 2011 at 9:56 am

    What fantastic feely fun, I love the idea of adding both rice and sand at the same time.

    Christie x

  10. chrisirvin says

    November 29, 2011 at 9:06 pm

    Corn meal would be interesting to try.

  11. Janice says

    November 4, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    What a fun idea….those umbrellas are cute!

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About The Imagination Tree Hello and welcome! I'm Anna, Mama of 4, early years teacher and play enthusiast from the UK! Click here to read more about me.

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