Plasticine is an element that we should always have at home, because in addition to being fun to play with, it is an essential element to help children in their development.

Help children to...

By manipulating the plasticine they strengthen their hands and fingers, favoring their fine motor skills and improving their grip for the writing process.

Helps improve your ability to concentrate .

Allows you to enhance your creativity and imagination .

It develops tactile sensitivity and its ability to adapt to different textures.

By kneading and playing with the plasticine they calm down, as it has a relaxing effect.

With it we take the opportunity to teach concepts such as: shapes, sizes, quantities, colors.

They learn to use different tools (moulds, toy knives, presses, etc).

It is an element that serves to represent reality: make figures, animals, elements, etc.

We achieve magical moments of interaction with our children.

How to prepare it?

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup of water
½ cup of salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
food coloring
1 mixing bowl

Step by Step

1. Put two cups of flour in a container.
2. We add a little water.
3. We add the salt, the oil and a little vegetable aniline of the color that we want.
4. We knead and add the rest of the water in parts, kneading the mixture between each addition until we achieve a homogeneous mass with the consistency of plasticine.

Tips

The mixture should not stick to your hands, if so, add a little more flour.

To preserve the plasticine, we store it in a container with a lid or in an airtight bag inside your fridge (before using it again, we check its condition).

How to play with her?

Do not force your children to do things, allow them to play with a lot of imagination , exploration and imitation. With your example you will teach them little by little how to use the clay.

From 12 months

• We make movements of opening and closing our hands manipulating the plasticine.
• Babies begin to move their hands exploring the texture and consistency of playdough.
• We can sink our fingers into the plasticine making holes.

From 15 months

• We make different figures with plasticine such as snakes, balls and arepitas using the workstation as a point of support to form them.
• We use molds to cut, spreading the plasticine and pressing on the mold to create the figure.
• There are also high relief molds to engrave figures in plasticine. We encourage babies to strip the plasticine ball on top of the mold, when removing it we can see the figure that was engraved.

From 18 months

• We hide a toy in the plasticine and invite the babies to discover it and remove it from it.
• We sink a bean into the plasticine, in this way we begin to work the strength in the fingers.
• We can bury things in the clay (popsicle sticks, toys, among others).

From 24 months

• We make circles of different colors, then we put them together to make combinations (it is recommended to do it with the primary colors).
• We can classify colors by giving simple instructions such as: in this container you are going to introduce the yellow circles and in another the blue ones.
• We use special tools for plasticine: plastic knives, different molds, presses, etc. This way the children will learn to manipulate them.
• We create geometric figures and take advantage of the moment of the game to teach this concept.
• We played at making the face of a doll and molded each of its parts (eyes, nose, mouth, ears, eyebrows, hair, teeth, tongue).
• We can follow the contours of figures, sticking plasticine balls.
• We play to fill figures by crushing the plasticine and playing with the use of colors, for example: we are going to fill only with blue, we are going to fill with all the colors, or we are going to fill this part with red and the other with yellow.

Do you already know The Music of Tool-be?