Ocean Dough ~ Learn Play Imagine

AKA playdough with an ocean theme.

My intention this week was to make chocolate playdough as we enter the Valentine's season, but when I saw how much JZ and JM enjoyed the ocean sensory bin I chose to stick with the ocean theme.

Usually I cook our playdough. This time I tried a no cook recipe.

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

2 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons cream of tartar

1.5 cups boiling water

I think I prefer the texture and consistency of the cooked kind. For fun I'm going to try a batch of crock pot playdough next.

JZ wanted to play outside, so I brought a Self-Healing Mat

down to serve as our work space.

I put the following in a muffin tin:

Surf Blue Glass Gems

Plastic Sea Life Creatures

Sea Shells

Just like the day before JM pulled out each sea creature and showed me. Only this time, he knew their names. :)

He also showed me each shell.

He thoroughly enjoyed smashing everything into the dough. He kept saying, "Look Mom, I smashed it," or "It's squeeshy."

JZ played with everything on the mat for a long time. He called the glass gems "the water", and he spread them out on the mat. I originally put the mat face down, so it was a solid color. He turned it over, so the lines were on top. "We need the targets," was his reason. He pointed to different places and said, "Here is where we live. Here is where Aunt K and Uncle K live. Here is Uncle D's house." It was really cute.

JM experimented with leaving imprints in the playdough. He liked seeing the different shapes left behind when he pulled the elements out of it.

"Look Mom, I'm making circles."

Then he asked me to make a wave. This was the best I could do with the amount of time he gave me.

It was good enough for him. :)

JZ played long after JM was done. He set up the whole mat as a small ocean "village".

He had to run upstairs to get our "Handy Helpers"
(Learning Resources Hand Pointers, Set of 3), so he could point to everything and tell me all about his "map".