Recipes For Fun Many commercially available materials for play can also be made at home from ingredients you would typically have right in your cupboard. Not only are these things less expensive than purchased materials, they are easily replaced when you run out and you know exactly what the ingredients are. Here are some sample recipes, guaranteed to provide hours on inexpensive enjoyment.
HOMEMADE PLAY DOUGH Ingredients: 1 cup white flour *Mix flour, salt and cream of tartar in a medium pan. Children of all ages love play dough. Be sure you stay with the youngest children if you allow them to play. The ingredients in this recipe are non-toxic but a very young child could choke if he ate big chunks of it
HOMEMADE FINGERPAINTS Ingredients: 3 T. Sugar ½ cup of cornstarch Mix the sugar and the cornstarch together in a pan. Add the water and mix it into the dry mixture. Cook over low heat until it is well blended, about 5 minutes. Let it cool and add food coloring. Put a small drop of dishwasher detergent in each color. Alternatives: Let your child fingerpaint with whip cream, pudding or jello. These are particularly good for very young children or children who are resistant to getting their hands dirty.
HOMEMADE PUZZLES Homemade puzzles can be made out of things you have lying around the house and can be made for almost any age level. First, find in a magazine, on the computer, in a coloring book, or draw yourself a colorful picture of something of interest to your child. Mount the paper on a piece of left over cardboard. You can then cut the picture into as few as two pieces or as many as twenty and your child can put it puzzle back together. With older children, they can help make the puzzle themselves and work on gluing and cutting as well as doing the puzzle itself.
HOMEMADE BOOKS Even at an early age, children will often find a topic of great interest to them. These early interests provide a great opportunity to help children make their own books. If your child has become fascinated by dogs of any kind, shape or size, you can encourage your child by providing him with old magazines and helping him tear out pictures of dogs. These pictures can be cut out with scissors by your child if your child is old enough or by you if your child is still too young. Glue sticks are wonderful for even young children to use to put the pictures on paper. If your child is beginning to show an interest in words, you can look up pictures of dogs on the computer or in an encyclopedia and write the kind of dog on the dog’s picture in your child’s book. These can be saved in either a notebook or just stapled together to keep a running record of the dogs your child has found. Almost any topic of interest to young children can be used to encourage a large number of early literacy skills in this way.
HOMEMADE BUBBLES Liquid dishwashing detergent or even tearless shampoo can be mixed with water to make wonderful bubble solution. Some people have said that some detergents work better than others so you will need to play with the proportions. A number of different things can be used to make bubble blowers: pipe cleaners with a loop in the end work well. Plastic margarine tubs are a good size for holding the bubble solution. For variation, try making giant bubble solution. Add two tablespoons of glycerin to the same solution (1/2 cup of soap to 5 cups water to start with). Make a bubble blower from a coat hanger, forming into a circle. For some reason, this solution seems to work best in cooler weather. Some recipes say that this solution improves with age so you should keep it for future use once it has been mixed. |
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