Dandelion Playdough

After seeing an article on using natural dye to colour the play dough we decided to give it a go with Dandelions. The field near us was about to be cut and so we rushed to collect as many daffodils as we could to use in our recipe before they were destroyed. 

We love Dandelions and so do the bees! So it's really important that we don't take these away from the wildlife they support. As they come back year after year and have one of the longest flowering seasons of most plants many gardeners actually dislike their success and try and get rid of them! 

To make our natural play dough we followed this recipe we found online;

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup of boiling water
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon cream of tarter
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 10-15 dandelion flowers with petals pulled out

Method

• Take your dandelion heads and put them into a cup of boiling water. Stir with a fork.
• In a mixing bowl add your other ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon.
• Once your water and dandelions have cooled add these to your mixture and stir. 
• If the mixture is cool enough knead. If the dough still feels sticky add some more flour. 

Once the play dough was ready the children loved exploring it by adding other flowers petals and leaves to it. I also enhanced it with some numicon and wooden letters and numbers. This idea was the from the Imagination Tree. 

Want to know more about bringing Nature into your play? Join the members hub here to access training on The Early Years Garden.