Some houses are slime free which is a great way to work on strengthening hand muscles. If that is your family, enter in gluten free play dough as an easy and frugal alternative.
These are the tried and true recipes we use in our homeschool.
Pumpkin Pie Play dough {gluten free}
(wanted to start with this one because the lovely smell!)
http://www.lovingmynest.com/fun-activities/inside/pumpkin-pie-playdough-gluten-free/
1/2 Cup Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Corn Starch
1/2 Cup Salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 Cup water
1 teaspoon oil
6 drops yellow food coloring
1 drop of red food coloring (play with the ratios to get the color you want)
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Mix all ingredients together in a sauce pan until well combined. Turn heat on low and with a sturdy wooden spoon stir constantly keeping the mixture from settling on the bottom of the pan.
Stir and “cook” for about 3-4 minutes or until the mixture forms a loose ball (it will be a bit sticky still – that’s ok). Lightly dust the table with rice flour and dump play dough out to cool. Once cool, kneed it to combine the rice four (if it’s a little sticky feel free to add a tad more flour at this point).
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Celiac Disease Foundation Gluten Free Play dough
Ingredients
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup salt
2 tsps cream of tartar
1 cup water
1 tsp. cooking oil
food coloring if desired
Directions
Mix ingredients in medium sized saucepan. Cook and stir on low heat until it forms a ball. Cool completely before storing it in a seal-able plastic bag.
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CORNSTARCH PLAYDOUGH
The recipe came from the cornstarch box.
Ingredients
1 cup baking soda
1 cup water
1 cup cornstarch
Directions
Mix ingredients in saucepan over low heat. Stir until mixture become thick and balls up. Mix in liquid watercolor or food coloring if desired. Remove from heat, knead until smooth.
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Masa Playdough Recipe
(have to try for the texture!)
http://notsosahm.blogspot.com/2012/05/jimmy-can-crack-corn-masa-flour.html?showComment=1344912843702
We’ve also been on a quest to find new play dough ideas, so when the giant bag of masa flour (corn flour) fell out of the pantry last week and nearly spilled everywhere, a little light bulb went off: masa flour play dough! We started with our favorite play dough recipe, but had to tweak it a bit to get the consistency just right. It smells like tortillas and has a super cool texture. Mom tried to get us to open up a play Mexican restaurant, but we wanted to use it for our usual’s — birthday cakes, pirates and army men. Here’s how to make ours — you’ll need:
– 4 cups water
– 5 cups masa flour (reserve 1 cup)
– 1 cup salt
– 2 tablespoons cooking oil
– 4 teaspoons cream of tartar
Combine water, 4 cups masa flour, salt, cooking oil and cream of tarter in large pot over medium heat, stirring constantly until most of the moisture is absorbed (we found this step went quickly with the masa flour). Let it cool on some wax paper or the countertop. We found ours pretty sticky at this point, so we folded in about 1 cup more of maize flour a little bit at a time. Store in airtight container.
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This was perfect timing for us. The muscle tone in the kids hands is going down and we will be starting back to OT soon. Using different textures and different firmness in play dough will help strengthen their hand muscles. All of this will help those wonderful fine motor skills that are so needed in writing!
Tomorrow will be a blog full of play dough catastrophes or triumphs. Hmmm which do you pick?
