Home-Made PlayDoh

I got inspired by Pinterest (pinterest.com/carlycollins)and decided to get a little crafty tonight.


**Check back over the next few days, as I'll be showing you a few different ideas I found and made at home. They were all super simple!!!**


First up:
Play-Doh!


At ToysRUs, it's $5 for a 15-pack of mini PlayDohs. I found a recipe through Pinterest, which led me to Michelle DuPuis' blog, Rust & Sunshine, and thought I'd try it out and see if it ended up being cheaper to make on my own. 


Recipe, courtesy of Michelle DuPuis from Rust & Sunshine. Click above to see full instructions for how to make it:
1 cup flour
1 cup warm water
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. oil
1/4 cup salt
food coloring

Making the PlayDoh on the stove

I went to the DollarTree and found many of the ingredients I needed, including flour, oil, and salt ($1 each). I also found a 10-pack of small containers for my clients to keep their PlayDoh in (also $1). At my local grocery store, I purchased the cream of tartar ($5), and a 4-pack of neon food coloring ($3). Total cost: $12.

Mini containers from the Dollar Tree

I doubled the recipe, and it filled the 10 small containers to the brim. I would say I easily have enough ingredients to make at least 10 more batches (actually probably a lot more than that, I'm pretty terrible at estimating things). I think overall it might be more cost-effective than buying it at a store, and it's definitely fun to make, but if you're in a pinch, $5 for 15 containers at ToysRUS isn't a bad deal I don't think.


Background:

A lot of my clients love playing with PlayDoh and it's an excellent sensory motor activity which promotes self-regulation when clients are feeling angry, anxious, etc. I learned this from an incredible colleague, Ken Schwartzenberger, LCSW, RPT-S. You can read an article in which he discusses neurosensory play here. 


I thought it might be fun to include my clients in the process of making PlayDoh and having it to take home. I often want to send my clients home with a little PlayDoh so that they can have a simple self-regulation tool at home. Because I work with low-income families, I try to provide my clients with supplies rather than asking their parents to purchase things for them. 


Note: My original vision was to make the PlayDoh from scratch with my clients. However, when you make the PlayDoh, you have to heat it over a stove. Not so easy to do in a school setting, and in a home setting, I don't want to be held liable if something were to happen. 
So, I pre-made the PlayDoh, but left it plain colored, and packaged it in the containers. I will include my clients in the process of choosing and adding the color, and kneading the color into the PlayDoh (making it a sensory activity immediately, and also giving them a feeling of autonomy, self esteem, and control). 

Uses for Balloons in Therapy

Great ideas for many different uses for balloons in therapy from the School Counselor Blog 

Image courtesy

Relaxation Tool

Image source: Here We Are Together Blog

Saw this great idea on Here We Are Together's blog, which you can link directly to here. 


Text directly from Here We Are Together about her Mind Jar:
A Mind Jar is a meditation tool to use whenever a child feels stressed, overwhelmed or upset. 
Imagine the glitter as your thoughts. When you shake the jar, imagine your head full of whirling thoughts, then watch them slowly settle while you calm down. 


My thought would be to basically use the jar as a relaxation tool with my students, as she mentions. 


Her recipe for making one is as follows:
We mixed 1 tablespoon of pink glitter-glue with about 1 cup of hot water, then added pink food colouring and a tiny tub of glitter.

Relaxation Techniques

Various relaxation techniques, worksheets, etc from Inner Health Studio. This web site was recommended by a trainer to recently conducted a workshop at my agency - they mentioned this web site as a great resource for relaxation techniques to work with children.
http://www.innerhealthstudio.com/