cloud dough

I have seen cloud dough on a number of blogs/websites since I began looking for activities a few months ago.  We tried it today and I can see why so many people have used it.  It has definitely become one of our new favorites.  We played outside today since the weather was so nice but I could see this being an awesome indoor activity when the weather is cold.  The common cloud dough recipe I found was:
- 1 cup of baby oil
- 8 cups of flour

8 cups of flour seemed like kind of a large amount to me for just M to play with so we made a half batch (1/2 cup of baby oil and 4 cups of flour).  This amount seemed to be just right for us today but I can see why the larger amounts would come in handy with more children.  I mixed it with my hands like kneading bread dough.  It mixed fairly quickly.

There were so many reasons why we loved cloud dough.  First of all, it feels really neat, which makes for an enjoyable sensory experience :)  It looks crumbly and grainy like sand but feels soft like flour.  It molds really easily.  It's not messy at all and easy to clean up - either toss it or save it in an airtight container.

Most of the places I read about cloud dough used a plastic basin for playing.  I put ours on a cookie sheet because I felt like it was less restrictive, plus we were outside and I had the luxury of just hosing down the patio when we finished.  If we were doing this indoors I would definitely use something with sides and I'd probably put him on newspaper or a plastic table cloth or something like that.  We used some of our sand table toys to play but for the most part I think M enjoyed using his hands.

And for easy baby/toy clean up...our water table:

homemade play dough

This morning M and I made a batch of homemade play dough.  I hadn't made homemade play dough since I was little but I think it came out pretty well.  There are a few different recipes for it but the one we used was:
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1/4 cup of water
Mix the salt and flour then add water and knead to form the dough.  We probably ended up using an additional 1/8 cup of water to get the consistency we wanted.  I split the dough in half and added 1 drop of blue and green food coloring.  I did the mixing but I think this is something M will really enjoy doing at 2 or 3.
M's favorite toys are baseballs, footballs, beach balls, rubber balls, etc. so I formed a blue and green ball for him to start with and he jumped right in.  We flattened them out like pancakes and rolled out the dough like snakes.  I attempted to make a few animals and we practiced our animal sounds (currently he has sheep, cow, and monkey down).  One of his favorite things was picking up the little dough balls (marble size) I was making and squishing them between his thumb and finger.  We also tried some cookie cutters:

M liked pushing the cookie cutters into the dough.  Our favorites were the stars:

M's table and chairs are near his play kitchen so we also used some of the kitchen toys with the play dough (his idea).  He liked stabbing the dough with the fork.  He also liked putting a bunch in a bowl and stirring it.  I showed him how to cut with the play knife.  This is M stirring:

If I remember correctly the homemade play dough doesn't last that long before it hardens up.  I wrapped ours in saran wrap when we were finished to try to preserve it but it's so easy to make that it doesn't really matter.  I also put out a white tray to play with the play dough on because I wasn't sure what it would do to M's wood table.  At a few points we were rolling the play dough right on the table and it did nothing.  The homemade variety seems less greasy than the store-bought kind.  I had thought about trying play dough with M before and decided not to because I thought he might be too young (currently 13 months) but he really enjoyed it and did a lot with it.  I also loved that he thought to use the kitchen toys all on his own (I should have thought of that!).