Salty dough day

I wanted to something with the kids for a while. They have been bugging me a lot, since my studies take so much time. So I have reserved one special salty-dough-day just for them. Actually it took us longer then just a day, because half a day they have been sculpturing and the other half was the dough drying. Well and then another day to paint. I guess if you have one or two kids, it does not have to take so much time. Anyways, kids loved it and enjoyed it, so I would definitely recommend this activity for rainy or snowy days. It is inexpensive, fun and creative. Our kids, from the age of 4 up to 11 enjoyed it a lot. So it is also activity that the whole family can do.

Here is a basic recipe for a salty dough. If you have more kids, don't forget to double the amount.


Ingredients:

• 1 cup of fine salt
• 2 cup of flour
• 1 cup of water (may add more)

Instructions:

• In a large bowl, combine the salt and the flour
• Make a well in the salt/flour mixture and add the water
• Knead until smooth and shape into a ball or simply just use your kneading machine
• Cut out different shapes, sculpture whatever you like, use your imagination and have fun
• If not used all, wrap leftovers in plastic or store in an airtight container 
•  Dry for 48 hours or just put in in the oven 250F, 1 1/2 - ... hours, depending on the size (our monsters took monster time to bake)

Tip:

• Do not let your kids eat it, lick their fingers, touch their eyes....
• For beads, make sure your holes are quite wide. For us skewer worked well.

So first we rolled and shaped the dough 

Everything is baking. Because I was not able to fit two pizza tins into the oven, I used muffin tin to raise one higher. So this way I was able to bake them all. 

One painting tip for the beads. You can just put them on a pencil and this way you can paint the whole thing at once.

 

And here are our results. Monsters went to kids' teachers and the rest stayed at home. 

To assemble necklaces I used scobidoo and tied a knot in between every bead and a necklace wire.