Yellow

playdough ingredients:

          2 cups of flour

          1 ½ cup salt

          2 tablespoons cream of tartar

          2 tablespoons vegetable oil

          1 ½ cups boiling water

          lemon flavourin

We put all the ingredients on the little table with a large bowl and every child had the chance to measure out and pour ingredients into the bowl using cups, measuring spoons and different sized kitchen spoons.  We talked about following the recipe in the correct order othewise the playdough wouldn't turn out correctly.  Some children used spoons to scoop flour into cups, other poured salt and oil and then we all tipped our ingredients into the big bowl.

I added the boiling water which I had added yellow colouring to and the children mixed very carefully using different sized spoons.  H said "it looks like porrige that I have at home" and S said "ewwwww it all looks squidgy".  We also talked about the boiling water being too hot to touch and we watched the steam rising from the cup before I poured it into the flour mixture.

This was the best bit! We tipped the warm mixture out onto the table and the children used their hands to mix it all up into playdough.  One of the children didn't want to put his hands in saying "it looks very sticky" so he waited until it was nicely dough consistency before playing with it.  Next the children made 4 dips in the dough and I added 4 teaspoons of yellow flavouring, folded the dough over the top and the children mixed it very thoroughly smelling the lemony fragrance.

We tidied everything up and then split the playdough into bundles for each person and put bowls of sparkly cut up pipe cleaners, yellow clothes pegs and colourful golf tees for free play.  The room went quiet as everyone experimented with the different resources, I just left them to it for a while

Playing and Exploring - using our senses to explore

                                      - pretending objects are things from their experience

                                      - engage in an open ended activity

Active Learning - maintaining focus on an activity for a period of time

                            - pay attention to details

                            - showing high levels of energy, fascination

Creating and thinking critically - thinking of ideas

                                                      - finding new ways to do things

                                                      - noticing patterns in experiences

                                                      - making predictions and testing ideas

Later we decided to make cakes using the yellow playdough.  We sang

5 current buns in a bakers shop

round and fat with a cherry on the top

along came (used the child's name here) with a penny one day

bought a current bun and took it away

The children loved the fact that we used their names in turn, they acted out paying me and taking their current buns away.  We all made current buns and used golf tees and sparkly pipe cleaners for the cherries.  We displayed them on a cake stand that I had purchased from Asda a while ago.  The children loved to see their individual cakes displayed on the cake stand and at first only bought their own cakes.  When it was my turn I asked S if I could please buy her cake, this prompted others to do the same and we told each other how lovely their cakes were.