Little House & the Farm, Part 5: 3 Themed Play Activities with Cinnamon Spice Playdough

Playdough is currency here. Both my boys would be totally content to play with it every day and maybe even all day! We use plenty of store-bought playdoughs and I even allow mixing colors (gasp!) but I love making our own. It's cheap, it's fast, it's fun and it is also quite nostalgic for me as I recall my own mother making playdough for us at home (and in her classrooms).

I especially love the option with homemade playdough to add in unique colors, scents and textures. On a whim before heading out to host our most recent Park n'Play Group, I whipped up a batch of sparkly blue lavender scented playdough for the children to use when they were done painting clouds on mirrors. We packed along some rolling pins, plastic knives and cookie cutters and this was as popular an activity with our group as the mirror painting!

At home, I often have a little helper or two when making playdough. With any cooking activity that involves the stove top, support and supervision are a must. Additionally, you'll want to be prepared that the dough will be too hot to handle right away, especially for little hands. For our Little House & The Farm play theme, I really wanted a dough with a theme related feel. Nothing to me says homestead more than the scent of cinnamon spice. This playdough smells good enough to eat and is technically edible, but not at all tasty, so you'll want to inform your little ones that it is to play with and not to taste.

To make Cinnamon Spice Playdough
You will need:

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 2 TBSP cream of tartar
• 2-3 teaspoons cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, all-spice, cloves, nutmeg (in any combination)
• 1 TBSP oil
• 1 cup water

Instructions: In a medium sized saucepan, combine all of your ingredients and mix well. In this dough, your spices give both a scent and a lovely color. Add as much as you like in whatever combination you prefer to achieve your desired shade and scent. Turn the heat on your burner to medium/medium-low. You'll need to keep stirring as the dough cooks and thickens. It may be a bit lumpy at first, but rest assured your stirring and kneading and subsequent playing will get those lumps out in no time. This is a very forgiving recipe and while it will be quite sticky as it thickens, your pan will come clean with a good scrape from a spatula and the dough itself. Anything left behind does best to be soaked in soapy water and easily washed away. Once your dough is thickened to a large ball in the center of the pot, you're ready to remove it from the heat. Wait a bit until it is cool enough to handle (please carefully test it before giving it to children) and knead it well on a cutting mat or art mat. Once it is cool enough to handle, you're ready to play! Store in an airtight container or ziplock bag between use. Dough generally keeps for at least a couple of weeks this way.

1.  Cinnamon Spice Bakery: Our first themed activity with our playdough was to play about baking with it! All throughout the Little House books, Ma is baking breads, cookies, cakes, pancakes and more! Add in some plastic knives, rolling pins, cookie cutters and kitchen utensils and you're ready to bake just like Laura and her family!
2. Invitation to Build a Farm: Wooden craft sticks in two widths and a collection of small plastic farm animals (these are from Walmart) were set out on our sectioned tray for the boys to build their own farms. This is a great way to incorporate STEM and building activities into sensory play! I did not give specific instructions, but rather allowed each of the boys to explore the materials as they wished. 

   

   Y enjoyed gathering and collecting (aka: hoarding) materials and squishing them into the dough. He also acted out little scenes with the animals walking along the table.

   
   

   

   S had a whole story line going with the animals in his craft stick fence. The cat was quite sad because her mother was gone. The other animals helped to look after her while she waited for Mother Cat to return.

3. Invitation to Build Your Own Little House: One of the most fascinating parts of the second of the Little House books, Little House on the Prairie is when Pa builds the family's new home out of logs and wood! My First Little House Books: A Little Prairie House adapted from the Little House books is a great version of this to share with the younger crowd and has beautiful illustrations by Renee Graef to go along. We scored a set of Lincoln Logs from a local thrift shop a while back and added those in along with the wooden craft sticks in this invitation to play. You could easily do without the Lincoln Logs and you could also add in wood blocks of another kind or even twigs and natural loose parts for building. The boys had so much fun building their own unique log cabins.

 Building with Lincoln Logs can often be a little challenging for young children as they learn to master the art of balancing the groves properly so their structures don't topple over. The addition of playdough to this mix allowed a whole new dimension of building--even working vertically for S and he took his building to all new heights (literally).

I hope this simple recipe and the ideas to accompany it inspire some fun sensory and STEM play in your own home. We have more themed fun coming up and until then...


Happy Playing!