Spices and Play Dough Invitation to Create

Remember our cardamom homemade play dough recipe? Yes we made 3 kinds of spicy play dough - cardamom play dough, cloves play dough and cinnamon play dough. Today’s post is about the simple “invitation to play and create” with the spicy play dough. Materials:

• Cardamom Play dough
• Cinnamon Play dough
• Cloves Play dough
• Cardamom pods
• Cloves
• Cinnamon Sticks

This play dough play idea is not that complicated. It appears too elaborate but in reality you are just setting out spices and play dough, that’s all. If you don’t want to “cook” or “make” play dough simply buy some and add scents to it. Buy play dough, add clove oil to it, add cinnamon powder to it and you are DONE! It is a good break from the unscented play dough. Watching the kids take big whiffs ( that is if they like cinnamon or cloves scent) is a joy to watch. When the children articulate their pleasure it is even more joyous to watch. Simple materials yielded big results as you will see down the the post. Our play dough play invitation. Yep, that’s pretty much the first thing my 3 year old will do when given a ball of play dough. With access to so much new accessories ( we love our cookie cutters, googly eyes and pipe cleaners as well) she was in sensory fine motor heaven. She seemed to be attracted to the cloves and dumped a handful of them on the play dough ( there went the fine motor opportunity!) Slowly she moved on to the cinnamon sticks and started arranging them around the cardamom play dough. I enjoy watching play and creations unfold during open ended play like this one. So much potential for the developing creativity, fine motor skills, problem solving skills. My 3 year loved the sensorial experience the spicy and fragrant play dough provided. She added rose petals and created a garden as she called it. So many play dough cakes for me! My 5 year old’s experience While my 3 year old’s experience was more sensorial my 5 year old’s was very creative - she always ends up “making” something. She started off sticking the cinnamon sticks in the clove play dough and was later building some kind of structure. I should tell you this taught a lot about balance to her- she enjoys building activities and did a great job making her creation structurally sound. {talk about physics in play dough!} Here is the peacock she made. Since she did not quite get the plumage right, she had to re do the whole thing from the scratch! Are all first borns perfectionists or is that a gross generalization? Now the peacock with the plumage. I love her attention to details.

She enjoyed creating this face with the clove play dough. She used a fork to give the girl a skirt.

After that she moved on to just simply enjoying arranging the spices on the play dough. Or that’s what I thought.

Nope. wrong! She was sequencing the cardamom pods for ..

creating a spice monster!

My kids and I really enjoyed this play dough play activity. This is something you can put together in a moment’s notice.

For more play dough recipes and play activities visit our category page

If you are a play dough lover like us, then “The Homemade Play dough recipe book” is great for you.The book is filled with simple, easy, homemade play dough recipes with a variety ranging from cooked version, no- cook version and bunch of simple doughs you can make right at home. Think about all those finger muscles getting a great workout while squishing, pinching and cutting play dough. Play dough can do more than strengthening finger muscles! Talk about encouraging creativity and independent thinking!This book with its wide variety of homemade play dough recipes and other great ideas for loose parts play will come in handy.