Fun at Day Care Centers: Play Dough Creativity Time

Once you started your day care center operations, you will be bound to concentrate on ensuring that your little client are having fun and are learning at the same time. Though kids can easily be stimulated, they can sometimes be hard to keep up with. Kids are naturally active and their attention span is really short. They want to keep on moving and exploring things around them. So to maximize their focus on a certain activity, you have to make sure that the activity you prepared will let them use two or more of their senses.

Play dough for instance, takes about 15 to 20 minutes of crafting and molding different shapes. In doing this activity, you stimulate the child’s sense of touch and vision. Children can develop their hand-eye coordination to mold the play dough into certain figures and shapes, and this activity also strengthens their gross and motor skills.

Though kid’s play dough is available at toy stores, it will be more fun to make your own play dough with your day care kids. This way, you have not only encouraged the little ones to create their own toys, you actually saved money because you won’t have to buy commercial play dough again and again.

You can make play dough by using heat or not. Here are some ways to prepare.

To cook:

You will need to:

1. Get 2 cups of flour, two cups of warm water, a cup of salt, two tablespoons of vegetable oil and a tablespoon of cream of tartar for elasticity.
2. Prepare some food coloring to make it more attractive.
3. Mix all the ingredients, except for the food coloring, you have and stir over low heat.
4. Wait until the consistency of the mixture thickens and no longer sticks to the sides of the pot.
5. Keep on stirring constantly until the dough sets on the center of the pot.
6. Knead the dough on a flat surface and on wax paper and add in the food coloring. Keep on folding the dough until the color spreads evenly.
7. Store your play dough in an airtight container when not in use.
8. Knead in a little warm water when the play dough begins hardening.
9. Just make another batch when the dough does not soften with warm water anymore.
10. This play dough is actually safe even if ingested; however keeping an eye on the toddlers while playing is still a must.

No cook play dough:

1. Mix three cups of flour, one third of a cup of salt. Two tablespoons vegetable oil, one cup of water and about seven drops of food coloring.
2. Knead and it is ready!
3. This kind of play dough is not as lasting as the other recipe that needs cooking but this of course is much easier to do.

One of the most flexible play stuff that kids will surely enjoy is the play dough. But always be careful and watch kids while they play to avoid accidents such as choking or putting it in their nose, ears or eyes.

See: Starting a day care center