The toddlers are always excited and engaged when we present them with a baking experience. Pouring in ingredients and stirring the mixture to make something so different than the items we started with. We bake about once per month, trying to pick a recipe that relates to the interests of the children in some way. This past month, we had a couple opportunities to engage in a similar activity as we worked together to make a few batches of play dough!
We ended up making play dough twice this month, once with educator Heather, and then again later in the month with one of our student teachers from the college. When we do this we all gather around one large table. Our memory and knowledge get tested as we try to remember the names of the different ingredients we frequently use such as flour, salt and oil. Together we look at the recipe and develop early literacy skills as the educators demonstrate reading the list top to bottom. We also work on early numeracy skills, our educator tells us ‘6 cups of flour’ as they point it out on the recipe and we take turns scooping the flour one cup at a time and counting as we go. Once we have our flour, we move onto the salt, moving around the table to make sure everyone has a turn to hold the measuring cups and add their ingredient. After that comes our turn to stir it. We use a large spoon and again go around the table to make sure everyone has a turn to stir the mixture. The next part involves boiling water so the educator takes the lead for this step to ensure safety. The children are aware and they safely observe without touching the hot water, often also giving their educator reminder to ‘be careful it’s hot’. Soon after, the mixture has come together and has cooled down enough for the children to handle themselves again.
As exciting as making the play dough is for the children, that’s only half the fun as then they are ready to play and create! We place large lumps of play dough around the table usually along with rolling pins, cookie cutters, plastic spoons, forks and knives. However, on the morning where we made play dough with Heather, we had been observing the toddlers play. They were using different toys from around the room to make ‘birthday cakes’ and were singing the birthday song to each other. Based on those observations we chose to put out with their play dough small tin cups and short pieces of coloured straws. This quickly became birthday cakes with candles, scaffolding on their earlier play.
Regardless of what they are creating with their play dough, the children work towards developing their fine motor skills as they squish and shape their dough and use the different tools provided like rolling pins and plastic knives. They develop social skills through sharing the space and materials and through their interactions and conversations with their peers as they play along side each other. Creativity is encouraged while problem solving and using critical thinking skills all while having fun!
