I love to spend time with my 2 ½-year-old niece Lilly. One of her favorite things to do is get creative with playdough.
Playdough takes me back to August of 2005 when I began the Restorative Dental Hygiene program at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario. Before the programs, official September start date our class met for a weekend to review dental teeth anatomy and we were given our first assignment. To creatively mold and carve teeth out of clay. The lesson was to learn the anatomy and morphology of all the teeth in the adult dentition. It took me hours to shape and contour the perfect teeth all while learning line angles, fossa’s, lobes, cusps, developmental grooves, tubercles, and ridges.
Learning the manual dexterity to work with pliable, sticky, viscous, mouldable materials is a skill used every day in the field of dentistry by dental assistants, dental hygienists, dental lab technicians, denturists, and dentists. Hand, eye and foot coordination combined with creative building, spatial relations and manual dexterity are the skill sets the field of dentistry depends on.
Whenever I want to get creative and review teeth anatomy or play with my niece Lilly I make a batch of playdough.
Here is my playdough recipe and a few tips and tricks I would like to share to help you make the perfect batch of playdough.
Ingredients
2 cups of all-purpose flour
¾ cup of table salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of coconut oil
A few drops of vegetable glycerin
Food coloring to add to 2 cups of warm water
Storage containers
Here are a few tips and tricks to making playdough that I would like to share,
I use a big silver bowl to mix the ingredients with a spoon.
I made colored water by adding the food coloring to warm water and stirring. I mixed this colored water with the dry ingredients. After I add the colored warm water to the dry ingredients I wait 10 minutes for the mixture to cool before I shape the playdough.
I use 20 drops of doTERRA essential oil to scent the playdough. I like to use essential oils such as lavender, orange, and lemon eucalyptus.
I wrap the play dough in plastic wrap and put it into the refrigerator overnight.
I take the play dough out of the refrigerator about an hour before I am going to use it so the play dough can reach room temperature.
I store the play dough in food storage containers with a lid.
I made 3 batches of playdough and it took me about an hour including setup, cleanup and time for me to play with the playdough!
Happy play,
Amie Banting