play dough : recipe and benefits

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1 cup water

1 /4 cup salt

1 Tbsp cooking oil

2 tsp cream of tartar

food coloring

Put all ingredients in a sauce pan, the food coloring (or you can also use koolaid) will depend on how light or bright you prefer for your play dough.

Mix all the ingredients until it's clump free, put it in low heat and stir. Do not stop stirring until the play dough is formed into a one big clump.

Remove from heat (wait till it's warm, hubby didn't. Too brave!) and knead. Once cooled, it's good to go!

Play dough Benefits:

• Creativity

Ways of playing play dough are limitless. You can create animals, fruits, vegetable, desserts, snacks and shapes. Just give them a wide variety of items they can play along with it (molds, sticks, pebbles, marbles, kitchen utensil toys, etc.) to encourage their imagination.

• Fine motor skill development

Squashing, squeezing, rolling, flattening, molding and cutting play dough strengthens the hand muscles and coordination of children that will make them ready for pen, pencil, scissors, etc later on.

• Great family bonding

It's a great way to connect with kids since adults can really participate. You can have a theme day every week to make it more fun. 

• Stress Reliever

Did you ever use a stress ball? Play dough is also a good way for releasing tension and stress. You can squeeze, squash and roll it in your hands that will help soothe and calm not only the kids, but the adults too. 

• Lesser gadget time

If you are trying to cut out your kids' gadget time, this is a good way to divert their attention since creating things out of play dough will need their focus.

Tip: Place a plastic cover in the area where your kids will play so it won't stick on the floor, carpet, chairs with embossed designs, etc.

Pasta day!

It’s just another normal day for our family. But just to break that monotony, I cooked pasta (we really prefer rice). But to make it a little exciting for my kiddo, I used a fusilli noodle or it can be a rotini noodle – honestly, it’s really confusing, I prefer to call it “twirly noodles” – rather than the normal long ones we use (is that angel’s hair noodle?). I also dyed the noodle to make more enticing to eat.

I really like to make a rainbow colored pasta, but as soon as my daughter saw what I was trying to do, she continually asked for the spaghetti so I ended up using just the pink and blue. And just in case you want to know how to dye your pasta, its actually pretty simple.

Put water, oil ( I used 1 tbsp. for 1 kilo pasta), a pinch of salt and the food color of your choice in a pot. Bring water to a boil then add the pasta. Stir from time to time until the pasta is “al dente”.

Making a rainbow colored pasta is pretty laborious, but hey!, I’m not about to do it everyday right? And I think the look on your kid’s face (and the dad’s face too!) makes the effort worth it.

I also cooked chicken macaroni soup (one of my daughter’s favorite) using the same noodle, perfect for the cloudy weather.

DIY Homemade Squirt Paint

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour

1 cup of salt

2  ½ cups of water

Food coloring

                Combine flour, salt and water in a mixing bowl. Mix it thoroughly. Using another bowl, put the 5 spoonful of the mixed ingredients, and then put food coloring as you like it. Then put it in a squeeze bottle.

                See? Easy peasy! And it’s not even expensive. For the ingredients, it only cost me P140 (less than $4).  I bought the 5 squeeze bottles for P150 (less than $4), but you can also use, empty ketchup squeeze bottles or similar to that.

Note that this is not meant to use with a brush because of its consistency. But it’s very nice after it dried out because it looks like it has glitters on it. And just in case you didn’t use it for a few days, sometimes, the salt melts. It will be watery, but that’s fine. You can just shake it or stir it with a barbeque stick.

                As a mom, I encourage parents to have their kids try this especially for toddlers. Here are my reasons:

1.       It helps enhance kids creativity

2.       They express emotions though their doodles

3.       It helps with color familiarization

4.       It can be parent and kids bonding time

5.       It can help remove or reduce tv or gadgets time

6.       The paint stain in the floor or clothes is easy to remove

I also tried this one so my daughter can doodle with a paint brush.

1 cup of flour

¾ cup of water

¼ cup of oil

Food coloring

                Just the same, mix the flour, water and oil thoroughly. Put some of the mixture in a separate bowl and put food color as you like and mix it again.

Have fun mixing and painting!