Good morning!

The countdown is on! We have five days left of school around here – and it is going to be a race to the finish line. My youngest has a Kindie Christmas concert; I’ve got meetings and reports cards to send home; there are two field trips planned; and it’s that time of year when you need to be spreading Christmas cheer.

I did work on some of the DIY Gift ideas that I shared with you all on Saturday – and I’m pretty excited about the little gifts I have up my sleeve for my coworkers and friends. But I also love to send my students home with a little something… and often I make a few batches of my Best Ever Homemade PlayDough to send home with them for the holidays. And to make it extra special and holiday friendly, I usually make up a batch of Christmas Peppermint and Sparkle PlayDough. They always LOVE it.

Kids love PlayDough. They can spend hours playing with it. And it’s great for their imagination. They can do everything from shaping their letters and numbers to creating Christmas “cookies” to building huge snowman scenes. They are far less limited by their imaginations then adults tend to be – and we need to give them opportunities to use “toys” and materials that allow them to express this.

This recipe is awesome because the peppermint scent will take over your house! It also lasts for a really long time -just seal it up in a big Ziplock bag when you aren’t using it. The sparkles are optional – and I will warn you that they will come off on your play dough playing surface, so if you aren’t down with that then leave them out. I just like to use them to try to discourage my kids and my kindies from eating the play dough. It happens more often then you want to know.

Christmas Peppermint Playdough

Ingredients

2 cups of flour
1 cup salt
3 tbsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups of water
1 tbsp food colouring approx. - red and/or green
1 tbsp peppermint extract approx.
sparkles - red and/or green optional

Instructions

Mix the dry ingredients in a pot, add in the wet ingredients (EXCEPT for the peppermint extract) and stir until mixed. If you are using sparkles you can stir them in at this point.
Heat over medium, stirring continuously, until it begins to form into a ball.
Add the peppermint extract and mix it as thoroughly as possible until all funniness is gone.

Isn’t that easy? And so much fun for the kids!

I know we will need some things to keep us busy over the two weeks of the holidays!