Posted by I am always trying to incorporate activities that include a variety of pieces or concepts to build on. This was an invitation to play with things from outside and nature inspired.
It started with taking a walk and talking about the trees, leaves and how they are changing in color. My son loves to pick up things along the way so we took a small bag to collect everything he found. He collected pine cones, leaves, sticks, twigs and rocks.
We set it up on a table and I made an herb tea infused play dough. It was so easy and changed my mind about buying store bough play dough again. It is so much softer and easier to handle. The recipe for play dough is below. Once the play dough was room temperature i set it up in the middle of the table surrounded by all the things he found outside. He poked holes in the play dough with the sticks, planted the twigs and leaves on the play dough, made stamps with the bottom of the pine cones. He spent some time playing with this and exploring the different objects.
Herbal Tea Play Dough
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of salt
- 2 cups of water
- 4 tablespoons of cream of tartar
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 tablespoon of oil
- 2 Tea bags
Directions:
- Bring the 2 cups of water to a boil in a large heavy bottom pot and drop in tea bags and steep for 10 minutes.
- Remove tea bags and set aside.
- Mix in the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil and keep mixing until a ball forms. You may need to add more water depending on consistency.
- When the mixture becomes “doughy”, remove from heat and start kneading. (the dough will be hot)
- Once a ball has formed remove from pan and let cool for 5-10 minutes.
- Mix with your hands well. You may need some flour if its too sticky.
- Open tea bags and sprinkle tea leaves on dough and mix.