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Bringing out the play dough always brings a few smiles at my house. The play clay available in the stores comes in bright colors with fancy (and expensive) kits and tools. Try making homemade play dough. It's easy to prepare a few large batches. It works well for me because I usually have a "large batch" of kids in the yard too.

Gather these ingredients: Flour, Salt, Food Coloring, vegetable oil and Cream of Tartar

In a two quart saucepan add 1 cup of flour, 4 teaspoons of cream of tartar and 1 cup of salt. Mix dry ingredients together. Measure 2 cups of water (with two drops of the liquid food coloring of your choice added) Drop in two tablespoons of vegetable oil and stir to mix. Add the liquids slowly to the dry ingredients in the saucepan and stir till combined. Heat over medium heat stirring often until the dough begins to form and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. It will become a bit dry too. Remove from heat and place on counter or board. Knead until smooth and cool. Keep cooled dough in plastic containers or plastic bags to keep soft and "playable"

Now, forget the fancy plungers and character kits sold in the store. Use a shoe box or Plastic storage box to create a special kit your kits will love. Look through the kitchen drawers, you'll be sure to find some safe gadgets to inspire creative dough play. My kit contains two small rolling pins, some rounded plastic knives, spoons, melon ball gadgets and a collection of plastic lids and cookie cutters. Boys and girls love rolling out the dough and cutting out the different shapes, gingerbread boys and animal shapes. They use the melon ball utensil to form meatballs and cut strips of dough with the plastic knives. Search neighborhood yard sales for cookies cutters and plastic trays and such for your homemade fun dough collection. I also include Styrofoam meat trays (trays on which you get meats & produce at the market) I put my trays through the dishwasher to make certain they are germ free for the little ones. These trays make a great surface for each child to roll out his play dough and/ or collect and display the "cookies" and other goodies they make. Add some plastic candle holders or any cake decorating goodies you've saved over the years. Children enjoy adding these to their "pretend" cakes and pastries.

Most often I observed the kids using the old cupcake trays and cookie sheets to "bake" their creations in their imaginary ovens. Do you think only girls will like making cookies and play

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