Edible Playdough (and a Couple More Summer Savers)

Between a very messy exploding homemade playdough incident and the older girls leaving some store bought playdough out and the baby choking on it, a few months ago I declared loudly that we were never doing playdough ever again! And I stuck with it for a while too.

We're coming to the end of summer and Daddy went out of town and we're bored. So I tried something that had always grossed me out a little, but the kids loved it: edible playdough. Rolling stuff around in your hands and then eating it sounded icky to me. But let's be honest, that's how my three-year-old eats most of her food right now anyway, especially bread and muffins. And not only did we not have to worry about the baby picking some up off the floor and eating it, we could give him some to play with.

There are variations on this all over the internet. Microwave 3 large marshmallows and around 2 Tbsp. peanut butter for 10 seconds. Mix them together and slowly add powdered sugar until it forms a dough. (I think I added a little too much and ours turned out a little crumbly, but it still worked.) I tasted it before it got smooshed in kids' hands and it wasn't too bad. I doubled the recipe and it gave both of my girls plenty to play with.

Here's the baby with his playdough. We didn't give him much and he ate most of it. He was pleased to be doing the same activity as his sisters.

The six-year-old made a dinosaur egg in a nest and a footprint. She also made a turtle, a volcano, and a snowman.

The three-year-old cheeseball spent the whole time making a huge cake. She rolls up little balls and smashes them on top of each other until she has a layered cake.

Their hands were greasy at the end, but they had fun and they actually didn't eat that much of it. Plus nothing exploded and no one choked. So I'd call it a success.

We've been doing a couple of other things that have kept us from going too stir crazy inside this summer. We have Wii Zumba games and my girls loves to do it and it gets a lot of energy out. And on the other end of the spectrum, we've been doing Cosmic Kids Yoga videos on YouTube. It's a British lady in full body sweater jumper things and she tells kooky stories with the yoga movements. It gets them moving but also relaxes them.

What are you doing to get through the last days or weeks of summer?

Pretend Snow

Despite my weird dream last night, it doesn't snow in Florida. (I've heard rumors that it snows here occasionally, but it melts before it hits the ground.) We visited Oregon for Christmas, but it was too warm and rainy for snow. My husband and I both grew up in the West and snow was a prominent memory of childhood winters. It's strange to think our children won't have the same experiences (though with frequent beach days, I don't think they'll mind too much).

So with no real snow in sight, I tried a Pinterest "snow" recipe for sensory play. You just mix shave cream (not gel) and baking soda. There's no exact ratio, just add some of each and mix together until it stays together when squeezed into a ball.

The girls loved this. They built snowmen, scooped ice cream, and played with this stuff for much longer than play dough holds their attention. It's probably the novelty factor. It was also a little bit cold to the touch due to the shave cream.


It did make a mess, so this isn't something I'd do on a regular basis. But it brushed off of children and swept up pretty easily. Even if you have real snow to go play with, this would be a fun activity for kids when you're stuck indoors because of the snow.