Materials: for each child:		Ingredients for each child:
newspaper measuring cup rolling pin muffin tin cookie cutters wooden spoon	smock bowl 2 large paper cups plastic spoon plastic bag placemat	1 1/2 cups flour 3/4 cup salt 3/4 cup water food coloring (optional)

Goal: Children will use their fine- and gross-motor skills as they mix and squish ingredients together to make homemade play dough.

In Advance: Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, and knead them into a ball shape to make one batch of dough. Store it in a plastic bag in a refrigerator until ready to use. Set up individual workspaces for each child.

Warm-Up: Gather children around a table covered with newspaper. Place the dough that you made in the center, and encourage children to touch it and describe how it feels. Record their descriptive words, such as wet, mushy, and yucky, on the paper.

ACTIVITY
1. Have children put on smocks. When children are ready at their workspace, encourage them to touch the flour, salt, and water. Ask them to tell you what they think is going to happen as they mix up all the ingredients. Talk about the ingredients and what the children are going to do with them.

2. Using your own workspace, show children how you pour the salt and water from the cups into the bowl, and encourage them to copy your actions. Help as necessary. Next, demonstrate how to knead the dough and roll it into a ball, again encouraging imitation.

3. Invite children to experiment freely with the dough. Point out the kitchen items and encourage them to use these too. Talk about how the dough feels, and use words to describe their actions, such as squeeze, poke, push, roll, mash, and pinch.

4. Write their names on the plastic bags and give one to each child. Show them how to place their dough in the bags to use at another time. Together, put the bags of dough in the refrigerator. Encourage children to help clean up by washing placemats and bowls, discarding newspapers and cups, and putting away smocks.

Remember:

• Some children will need assistance in kneading and molding the dough. You may also need to help children adjust the ingredients, adding more water if the mixture won't hold a ball shape, and more flour if it's sticky.

Observations:

• Are children able to manipulate the ingredients to make the dough?
• Do children use their imagination to invent new words for the "squeezable" stuff?

Spin-Offs

• Make colorful play dough by adding drops of food coloring to the water or decorating the dough balls with paint and markers.

• Another time, repeat this activity, expanding it to include children's sense of smell. In addition to tactile materials, help children add small amounts of different scents to the dough, such as lemon and vanilla extracts or perfume.

BOOKS
These three "squeezable" books are fun to share with everyone.

Harry by the Sea by Gene Zion (HarperCollins)
Marvelous Mud Washing Machine by Patty Wolcott (Random)
Yummers! by James Marshall (Houghton Mifflin)