This is a wonderful craft for the kids to do for so many reasons.
Not only is it a great way to learn but it is also fun and rewarding.
Best of all the tree will be decorated with beautiful unique hand made decorations.
To make the dough:
What we used
1 cup of salt
2 cups of flour
Little more than 1/2 cup of water
What we did
(I really should say that the children can do this
on their own with some background supervision.)
Pour the salt and the flour into a mixing bowl.
Get the kids to put their hands into the bowl,
feel the different textures,let it flow between their fingers.
Let it snow.
This could take a while but there’s no hurry.
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When they are ready (and hands are out of the bowl)
slowly pour the water in, stirring all the time.
Stop pouring when it looks right.
Time to get the hands gooey.
Put the dough on the table and start squishing
and rolling in your hands until it sticks together well.
Now roll out the dough and use Christmas cookie cutters to cut out shapes.
We used stars and Christmas trees.
Poke a straw through the top to make a hole
big enough to thread ribbon through.
Now, you could put them in the oven and cook at 180 but it can take 3 hours or more.
So i leave them to air dry over night.
Put your shapes on grease proof paper laid out on a tray.
Place the tray on a shelf in the hot press or somewhere dry out of reach of little hands.
Now wait.
Next day check that they are hard.
You may need to leave them for a few more hours.
Now paint, glitter and thread ribbon, wool or pipe cleaners
(we put beads on pipe cleaners in the picture.)
through to hang them on your tree or even from closet handles
to fill your home with colourful Christmas decorations.
craftyfunkids 