Leftover Playdough Recycling

I quickly learned not to get obsessive over mixed up or dried play dough at our house.  It's one of those inevitable things you give up control over if you want to stay a sane working mom.

Play dough is one of the toys I like to keep out in the open because there's so much open-ended play you can do with it now that her imagination has kicked in at preschool age.  See how we kept our play dough in a lock&lock case for play, like our popular sweet shop idea here.  Nowadays her fingers are strong enough to pry open these wretched lids, and the possibilities are endless.  Which usually means a big blob of play dough is used regularly.  That's fine, I'd rather keep buying play dough than cheap plastic toys.

To recycle one more use out of dying play dough, we turn them into volcanoes:

The play dough is hiding a bottle with baking powder.  It bubbles over when vinegar is added (ours has red food colouring)

  Or we mix them together to make a perfect surface to make stamped designs:

This one is a leave-behind phonics-learning tray, but for younger kids you can use this idea for artwork too. 

This is inspired by No Time For Flashcards

  And those yellow containers make great sorters.  We've accumulated a small amount since we started:

I'm being sarcastic.  That's 52 cups!

So embrace the moment of creativity, squeeze one more use out of the lot, and then let go.