Clubhouse Play Dough: Just Add "Dirt"

During play dough pledge week it only made sense we took one of our favorite paint recipes, Dirt Paint, and added a few extra ingredients to make it into play dough.

We used the exact same basic recipe as we did to make our Crayon Dough. We just also added some of our coffee grounds, ahem, I mean "dirt" to the dry mix.

For the record, the Clubhouse Kids are totally aware that this is actually coffee. They commented on the scent of it, as they do every time we make our coffee paint. I have a bunch of coffee loving kids around here. The SCENT of it of course, not the taste. We do get our sense of taste involved in a lot of our activities, but the last thing any of the Clubhouse Kids need to do is actually ingest coffee ;)

After the other ingredients come to a boil we mixed them into our bowl of dry ingredients, and added a healthy dose of washable black tempera paint.

Once that was all mixed up, we had a nice big ball of what could have been dirt dough, but we weren't finished yet.

Here at the Clubhouse, dirt dough needs A LOT of that special ingredient...

...so we rolled out the dough and covered it in more "dirt". They absolutely loved getting their hands on it.

They mashed it in, spread it around, and of course it wasn't long before I heard,

"Look, my worm is tunneling through the dirt!"

Yes, Diary of a Worm was a requested read later that afternoon (again).

They spread, mashed, tunneled through, and tore at the dirt dough. All the while mixing in that extra ingredient to make it an even "dirtier" dough than we started with.

This was Day 1. Just like when we made the Crayon Dough, simply making the dough engaged everyone for a good long time.

The next day, I set out the dirt dough with a few extras.

They got right to work.

"I am smashing the rock in the dirt."

"I'm making a planet!"

"I can make a planet too!" 

Then they decided one planet was better than two. 

"Let's put our planets together!!"

Together they made "Planet Dirt", and continued that into dramatic play outside where they went off looking for aliens. 

Dirt Dough was definitely a success, and I'm sure it will be reached for time and time again. Thanks again to Nurturestore, The Imagination Tree, and Sun Hats and Wellie Boots, for hosting the Play Dough Pledge. To see an amazing list of play dough recipes, activities and more... head on over to the Play Dough party and check it out!! 

Welcome to Planet Dirt, where getting dirty smells good...

Ms. Liz