Tuesday's Toddler Tip

Really these tips are for children between the ages of 2-5. Some of them you can do with littler kids (I do) and some of them with older kids. But I love the aliterativeness (Yeah I know I made up that word) of the title. I am now a stay at home mom but before this I ran a preschool attached to a Catholic school, before that a lead teacher at an accredidated day care. All in all I have 7 years teaching experience and I NEED to use it....I WANT to use it. Hence our Tuesdays together. I almost forgot about doing it today until I was doing this....

A Christmas Countdown. I wanted to start it yesterday as I'm working on counting items up to 10, but I forgot. I made 9 trees and each day we will take one off and count them. It's a great activity for counting and it took me all of 5 minutes to make. That's not today's tip however.

This is: Peppermint Play Dough

2 cups of flour, 2 tbsp of vegetable oil

1 cup of salt, 4 tsp cream of tarter

2 cups of water, red and green food coloring

2 tsp of peppermint extract

Combine all the ingredients except the food coloring in a large pot. Cook over low heat, stirring until dough forms and pulls away from the sides of the pot. Remove the dough from the heat source and let it cool alittle. While it is still warm, split it into two sections and mix in the food coloring. (If you are only using one color you can add it at the beginning with everything else) Let it cool completely before allowing the childen to play with it.

This is one of my absolute favs. I make all my own playdough because it's softer and it lasts longer than the store bought kind. Plus I can make seasonal playdough....which is always fun. Hope you'll use this recipe and that you'll keep coming back. I want it to be someplace you can come for ideas. And if you're looking for a specific topic or have a question you want answered feel free to ask. Tune in next week when we'll be making a Christmas keepsake.

And this is my second post today so keep reading. :)