Homemade playdough fun. Dinosaur, fire truck and hippo tracks

I actually made playdough before, like half a year ago. Pipidinko wasn't interested much in it. I made some playdough pictures for him, and he admired those, but that was it. Then I bought a playdough set a few months later, and he enjoyed stuffing it in different tubes and kept asking me to open a new jar until all the playdough was dried out. I find commercial playdough very tough, not really suitable for a toddler.

Today I gave it another try. I made a new batch: 1 cup of flower, 1/3 cups of salt (too much, no salt next time! it dries out our hands skin), 2 tsp cream of tartar, 1 tbs olive oil, 1 cup water, cinnamon. Mixed all in a saucer on the medium heat, divided into 3 parts and added different food coloring to every batch. Kneaded the dough for a few minutes, until very smooth.

I was inspired by this article here. I thought it would be an  awesome idea to explore different shapes and textures, and see how they make different imprints. Only either Santino is still too young to be interested, or he just wasn't in the mood today, but out of the items I placed in front of him, he only wanted to explore the fire truck, the dinosaur and the hippo.

 

I did manage to sneak in a Christmas tree ornament, a fork and a pencil, but that was it. Then back to the dinosaur.

 

He loved making dinosaur tracks, skin and tail imprints.

He also loved having the hippo stuck in the playdough.

The hippo and the dinosaur had a few fights.

 

 

Between making prints, I encouraged Pipidinko to take the play dough and squish it in both of his hands. He actually liked it, but didn't want to do it for long, just a few squishes. I consider it still a good start.

 

 

All and all, this was a fun time. We spent good 40 minutes playing with this playdough. I put it away in a zip lock container and in the fridge until next time.