Playdough!

Our Birch friends have been busy noticing so many things over the past several weeks as we have explored our interests.  We have painted, built, explored nature, told stories...and more!

As we have zoomed in on nature our friends have collected many interesting treasures, nature-treasures!

We have heard several friends connect these treasures to our painting exploration and wondered what marks they might make.  We have heard the word "stamp" used several times.

Today your teachers thought about a way we might begin to explore what "stamps" these nature treasures might make.  But in order to do that, we needed to take one important step first...create something in which to stamp.  What might that be?

Playdough!

So today we took a group on an adventure in our building to collect the materials we would need to make playdough.

"I LOVE this!  I eat it all the time!" JA

Hmmm... you eat THIS all the time?  What do you think this is?

"SUGAR!" JA

You are noticing the way this looks and you are right, it does look like sugar, but it's not!  What else looks like sugar?

"Salt!  My Daddy cooks with salt."  DM

You are right, salt is an important ingredient in cooking. 

Now that we have collected all of our ingredients let's get cooking!

"Do we all get to pour some?" EM

Absolutely, everyone gets to help.  Making playdough is a great way for us to work on SO many skills.  We have to be patient and wait for our turn to add ingredients.

We have to work closely with a friend as we pass materials around the table.

We have to work together as we hold the spoon for a friend to pour.

We have to control our small muscles as we scoop and pour JUST the right amount.

We have to use our big muscles as we stir, stir, stir and count to ten before we pass the bowl to a friend.

And then we have to exercise our patience as we wait for the playdough to cook!

Finally, though our hard work and patience are rewarded with soft, warm, perfect playdough!

"It smells like food."

"It's soft."

"I can roll it."

"I made it flat."

"The other playdough smelled like cinnamon."

 

Our other playdough recipe was scented.  Your teacher remembered a material that we have and put one drop in each ball of playdough.

"Mmmmmmm!"

Now that we have our foundation, we are excited to see how we will continue to explore.