Stretchy Dough! (Homemade Play Clay)

I decided to give myself the week off from cooking.  Greg had the week off, and so did I, for the most part.  That gave me time to putter around the kitchen and enjoy the time with my family.  Although, I still spent a good portion of my time in the kitchen.  A.J. and I did our usual art project on Tuesday, and this week it was to make stretchy dough.  It's very similar to play dough, but without the salt.  It's consistency is much closer to bread dough (very close to the biscuits I made the day before from the Tassajara Bread Book), so young children love to poke, pound, and squeeze it!  This is one of the many projects in First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos.  This book has helped me immensely with finding art projects that are suitable for someone A.J.'s age.  I have no imagination when it comes to art (it still boggles my mind that I was placed in gifted art classes as a young child), and these projects come with suggestions for what the child can learn/do in addition to just having fun with it.  Although, play is a child's work anyway.

This has been one of our most fun projects to date!

The ingredients are very simple.

1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp. food coloring (optional, but A.J. really loved this part)
2 cups flour

(No salt needed - I took this picture before I really read the ingredient list! I couldn't decide if we should make a variation of this dough called "Fruity Dough" which does require salt.)

You also need various "tools" that the child can poke or otherwise manipulate the dough.  We used chopsticks, straws, popsicle sticks, spoons, a rolling pin, yogurt containers, and toothpicks, but the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Once you've got all your ingredients together and your child ready, you can mix together the water and oil, and let them stir the two.  Since A.J. is only 19 months, I put him in a learning tower, so he's at the right height and I don't have to worry about him falling.  If you're not familiar, a learning tower is a fabulous tool that is often used in Waldorf schools and homes.  They allow you to incorporate your child into the process of cooking/baking and other similar activities safely.  They are good for children 18 months - 6 years.


Once you have the oil and water stirred together, your child may get a little off course, as A.J. did, and grab the rolling pin and try to stir the mixture with that!  It's all good though, as art (and everything) for toddlers and twos is about exploration, and not doing things "right" or the finished product.  It's all about the process.








Next, you can add in your food coloring and stir that together.  Once that is mixed, you can slowly add in the flour.  Your child can be stirring the entire time you are doing this.  A.J. loves to stir!









Once you have the flour mixed in, it's time to play!
Poke the dough with the myriad tools you have, or roll it out with a rolling pin, or whatever else your child wants to do.  The dough is very oily, so you might consider putting a tablecloth under it, if you are using your kitchen table as a work space.

This dough does not hold it's shape well, so it's not for major sculpting projects.

After several minutes of exploration, I could tell A.J. wanted to get down from his learning tower, and so we moved the dough to his wooden table, and continued our exploration until A.J. looked at me and said, "Playdough.  Playdough.  Playdough." and walked over to where we keep two little containers of Play dough that he got as a party favor this month.  The frustrated mother in me wanted to say, "No.  We're playing with the stretchy dough that we just made, and I carefully planned to make last night.  Our homemade dough is better, anyway.  Don't you know?"  Fortunately, I put the kaibosh on that control freak mom, and pulled out the containers of play dough.  Aidan played with that, while I played with the stretchy dough.  Aidan eventually came back to the stretchy dough.

Once finished, I put the leftover dough in a large yogurt container, and put it in the fridge for use on another day!