Homemade Playdough (or how to kill an hour)

Today at 2:30 Harrison was bored, really bored. Since lunch he had already pedaled his bike up and down the street a dozen times, dragged the snowblower and lawnmower out of the garage and demonstrated where the both the gas and oil go (correctly, I might add), had 3 snacks, watched an episode of Spongebob, inspected a colony of sugar ants, rummaged through the garage for any spare tools lying about, and was begging for a friend to come over. How about making play dough? I suggested, he heartily agreed, and I set out the ingredients. He measured and mixed everything himself (minus the boiling water) and turned out some fantastic play dough! Here's the recipe I used that worked like a charm.

Homemade Play Dough

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 tsp. powdered alum
1 1/2 Tbsp. oil
1 cup boiling water

Sift together the flour, salt and alum, stir in oil. Pour in boiling water. Stir until mixed, then knead until smooth. This took minutes to put together and made for about an hour of fun.

Harrison measured all the ingredients himself! I did the boiling water though.

When it was kneaded all smooth, he decided he wanted 4 colors, so we divided it into fourths and I let him have at it.

He really is more excited than he's letting on in this picture. 

This is my favorite kind of food color for projects, the color is so vibrant! (I can't bring myself to actually put it in food though, something this colorful can't be good for you)

"Mom, I'm DONE with pictures now, you can put away your camera" - direct quote

See? Nice beautiful colors and the play dough is perfectly soft. Go ahead and give it a try, don't forget to let me know how you liked it!