Valentine’s Day Activities for Kids: Rose Playdough

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Whip up this easy rose playdough as part of all the Valentine’s day activities for kids to enjoy. This rose playdough smells great and needs just one additional ingredient to go in your playdough mix. { Access all our Valentine’s day activities for kids and other hearts activities here}

In order to keep my pre schooler occupied while I took care of my baby I find myself busting out the old play dough time and again. To sustain the fleeting interests of young minds, I shook things up with a fun rose fragrance to make play dough play even more exciting. Snow is great and all but we here in Mid West have way too much of it and I wanted something cheery. Thus was born our new Valentines Day activity : Bright, cheerful, colorful, extremely fragrant ROSE PLAY DOUGH. Stay tuned for more exciting Valentines day activities here on the blog.

There are numerous play dough recipes out there and we used a basic one.

Here is our recipe for our Rose Scented Valentine’s play dough

[box title=”Rose Play Dough Recipe” ]

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 2 tbsp Rose Fragrance Oil
  ( vary according to your preference, I didn’t want it to be too overpowering)
• 2 tbsp cream of tartar
• Upto 1 1/2 cups boiling water
• Few drops of red food coloring
• 1 tbsp rose water+glycerin ( optional, vary it according to your preference)[/box]

I found the rose+water glycerin at a drug store next to the regular glycerin. Rose scented body oil was found at the same place as well. You can also try online retailers like Amazon. Here is a link for your reference.

Combine all the ingredients except water and 1/2 tbsp of rose oil. Add in the water and mix and knead. Once you get your desired consistency finally add the 1/2 tbsp of oil to keep the fragrance. If you feel it is too oily, blot off or just add the entire rose oil at the beginning.

We tried 3 versions and here are our findings

If just rose water is added, the fragrance is fantastic at the beginning and once the hot water is added or the cooking has begun, the fragrance slowly but surely dwindles away.

If just the rose oil is added fragrance is present but not strong enough.

Add some rose water+glycerin combination along with rose body oil you got yourself a winner.

This is how we played

Big S had a great time rolling the dough, cutting out the shapes and decorating them with sequins and sprinkles. While she was busy having fun, she was working on her fine motor skills: hand-eye co-ordination, strengths finger muscles with all the rolling, squishing and decorating.

What I love about play dough is the endless possibilities of crafting and decorating. Anything less than perfect to my 4 yr old, she goes right back into a ball for another try. Oh! by the way what we made were cookie pops and not cake pops according to my pre schooler because cake pops have got to be round.

For some extra fine motor fun, decorating with sequins and glitter were always available. This time we did another activity to strengthen those finger muscles. We used bindis/dot stickers to decorate a flower play dough.

Now who wouldn’t want this at a Valentines day party?

  Here are all our creations which involved tons of sensory exploration rather sensory explosion.

Edit: If the kid is still puts things in his/her mouth, please refrain from using anything but vegetable oil. Both my kids have outgrown that stage so we are in a position to experiment with various scents and additions to home made play dough.

Pretty pink play dough play not your thing? Check out an equally fun play dough play with power tools here.

Thanks for reading

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Some wonderful collaborative e-books we have released!

A book filled with playful science and math activities

Check out our resourceful e-book filled with many preschool play ideas.

We have also collaborated on another e-book with simple and practical baby play ideas.

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