Playtime recipe ideas:

Play-dough

Materials:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 4 tbs Cream of Tartar
• 2 tbs cooking oil
• 1 cup salt
• 2 cups water
• Food colouring

Directions:

• Mix the ingredients in a saucepan
• Stir over a medium heat for 3-5mins or until the mixture sets

Play-dough PLAY ideas:

Textured play-dough
Add one of the following to your play-dough batch:
Sand, rice, confetti, split peas, lentils, dried beans, glitter, small leaves.
Creative play-dough  
Make up play-dough and set it out for your children with some of the following items for hours of creative play:
Baking trays, cookie cutters, cake & muffin tins, ice cream sticks, old keys, patty pans, pipe cleaners, plastic cutlery, plastic scissors, potato mashers, rolling pins, ice cream scoop, buttons, matchsticks
Printing play-dough
Make interesting patterns in play-dough using any of the following:
Flowers, gumnuts, kitchen items, leaves, nuts & bolts, fingers & elbows, toy blocks, stones, buttons

 

Silly Slime

Materials:

• 1 cup Corn Flour
• 1 cup Water

Directions:

• Mix 1 cup of corn flour with 1 cup of water. 
• Use your hands to mix it until it is a smooth texture. 
• You can change the texture by adding a 2nd cup of corn flour. 
• Kids love adding food colour or paint to make the slime. 
• They have fun using their imaginations to make it resemble different icky substances.
• Store in a covered container.  It will keep for several days.

You may use boiling water to create slime with a different consistency.  You might want to try making it both ways and letting the kids experiment with the differences (once it's cooled a bit!).

 

Bubbles

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup liquid dishwashing detergent
• 3/4 cup cold water
• 5 drops of glycerine

Directions

• Simply mix all ingredients together and you’ve got you own bubble mix
• Follow the directions for the Bubble Time and you can create your own bubble blowing wand

 

Edible Finger Paint

Ingredients:

• One-cup flour
• 1 cups hot water
• 1.5 cups cold water
• Two-tablespoons salt
• Food colouring

Directions:

1. Mix the flour, salt, and cold water in a saucepan.
2. Mix until smooth.
3. Add the hot water and boil it until the mixture is quite thick.
4. Again, mix until smooth.
5. Add food colouring and stir through.

 

Easy Peasy Cookie Dough

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla 
• choc chips (optional extra)

Directions:

1. Using your hands, combine all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl
2. Preheat oven to 180ºC 
3. Using your hands roll the cookie dough into small balls 
4. Place onto greased or lined oven tray and gently flatten with a fork
5. Bake 20-25 minutes or until very lightly browned
6. Remove from oven allow to cool and enjoy!

Household Treasures....

Find and save the following items (plus anything else you can find that may be useful) for your children to use for open-ended play and activities.

Simply set some of these items out, along with paper, glue, scissors, sticky tape, pipe cleaners, icy pole sticks, paint, markers etc, and watch your kids create masterpieces:

• EGG CARTONS
• MILK CARTONS
• BOXES
• PAPER TOWEL ROLLS
• PHOTOGRAPHS
• MAGAZINES
• BUTTONS
• COTTON BUDS
• PASTA – PENNE, MACARONI
• OLD GREETING CARDS
• LEAVES
• FLOWERS
• BARK
• FILM CANISTERS
• CONTAINERS/TUBS OF WATER
• SAND
• CLAY
• MUD
• STYROFOAM PACKAGING
• NEWSPAPERS