Play Play With Play Dough

Playdough is one of Elgin's favourite games. He received a set when he was 4-year old. The problem with play is it sticks to surface of table when dried up. I would have a hard time cleaning up. Eventually the playdough will harden and Elgin would start bugging me to buy him new ones again. It was rather costly to get the child proof type as I was afraid he was tempted to put it into the mouth since the colors looked temptingly edible. So eventually I decided to make a playdough with safe ingredients myself.

Found some "recipes" for making playdough using flour. Basically 3 main ingredients are needed. Flour, salt, oil and baking powder. Then you just have to mix it with enough water and "cook" it using microwave. The salt, oil and baking powder function as preservatives together it will make the playdough stay fresh, soft and pliable for at least 2 weeks. In fact, we can keep the unused playdough in an airtight container and keep in the fridge for longer than a month. I was so glad that I finally discovered a safe and cost-saving solution. This is a perfect game for him as he can play alone.

Elgin loves to shape the playdough into all sorts of things he sees and the common ones are food items, animals or kitchen utensils. As he always observed me preparing food or making buns in the kitchen. His favourite shapes are rolled buns, plates and cups.

The playdough that I prepared is always plain as I do not want him to stain the table. When he was six, I sent him to art class and he started to learn using water colour to paint the playdough. One day when I reached home, Elgin showed me all his shaped playdough completed with paints which he placed on the table to dry up. I was so astonished to see that at this tender age, he already had a wild imagination.

Curiously, I point at the shaped dough one by one and ask him, "what is this babe?"

Take a look at the pictures below.

According to Elgin, it is (clockwise from top left to right)

A bell

A mug

A hammer

A hat

A snail

Need a close up? This second pic was taken with a flash light and from a different angle. What are you imagining about?