We had a rather hectic end to the term and I’ve been away so I’m catching up now on some of what happened in our last 2 days.
We usually have gumnuts and other natural items for the children to use in their playdough creations – but the playdough dries out and it’s not very successful if they want to make a permanent piece of work. So we made some salt dough 
for the children who were interested – and of course that meant everyone ended up using it!
It’s an easy recipe: Dissolve 1 cup of salt in about half a cup of boiling water then add 2 cups of corn flour. You can add a little extra water but don’t make it too wet. When you are using it to shape and model, you wuill find that small thin pieces dry out and harden more quickly than big fat blobs – but it still works!
We can learn so much from children’s creative activities – Joel made a colorful, decorated slug, but it had a point of symmetry in the middle with the same pattern extending on either side – there’s maths in his design, as well as imagination.
Some creations were rather more symbolic than others…
but the children made choices, were able to talk about what they had done and felt successful in creating something very much their own…fantastic experiences to build strong skills and dispositions for learning….
We used it in its uncolored state – so they could paint it as they wished. (you can add food dyes to it when you make it if you like).
There were lots of birds, monsters, an echidna, even a dragon by the end of the week!
We enjoyed looking at everyone’s creation – all so different but each one special. (One of the great things about artistic expression for anyone is that there is no one way to do what you have in your head – and we are developing respect for others and enjoyment of diversity along the way.)
