Friday, August 26, 2011

100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 38: Play-Doh Cookies

I admit it: Today's activity was just as much for me as it was for Oliver.

Oliver loves making cookies with me. Every day, he begs me to pull out the Kitchenaid to make cookies. We don't do it often (maybe once or twice a month), but it really is one of his favorite things to do. We've always made drop cookies and never any roll out cookies.

Today, I thought we'd practice to get Oliver on par for Christmas time.

This activity came from Andrew's mom. A few months ago, she bought some clay, a small rolling pin, and some plastic cookie cutters for Oliver to play with at her house. It sounded promising, but Oliver wasn't very interested in playing with the clay.

I have a few canisters of leftover Play-Doh from Halloween last year (we gave out miniature canisters to trick-or-treaters). After success with yesterday's creative activity, I decided try another creative activity today. I dug out the rolling pin and the leaf cookie cutters from his party last year. Then, I showed him how to roll out the "dough" and making "cookies" with the cutters. Success! Oliver played with me for a solid 10 minutes before declaring that he was done.

In my mind, Oliver's going to be ready for making sugar cookies at Christmas time. I am excited thinking about letting him help me roll some dough and use some cookie cutters. Fun, fun!

Like yesterday's activity, this one earns an A. It's creative and fun without being messy. Cleanup included wiping down the rolling pin, rinsing the cookie cutters, and putting the Play-Doh back in its container. For me, it was all simple, but it will take advanced prep for people who don't have the supplies on hand. If you don't have all the equipment at home, you can improvise. I'm sure you can use a cup turned upside down as a circle cookie cutter, and anything cylindrical can be used in place of a rolling pin. If you don't have Play-Doh or clay on hand, there are some recipes on the internet. I've never tried making my own, so I don't have one to recommend, but this link has three recipes listed. Use whichever one fits the ingredients you have on hand.

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