Activity Fail

Last week I tried a sensory activity with LB that I have been wanting to do for a while. Sadly, it was a total fail! I got the idea from one of my favorite websites for toddler sensory activities. She calls it Cloud Dough. LB loves his play dough so I was convinced this would also be a hit. I decided we would do it outside and that may have contributed to it's demise. However, it was very messy and I am not sure how I would have contained all of the flying flour if we did it inside. The idea is that you mix flour and oil to create a moldable dough. I brought out some bowls and spoons and cookie cutters and I thought we would at least get 30 minutes of good play out of it. LB played with it for a whopping 5 minutes. Boo! His favorite part was helping me dump cups of flour into the bin. It's also possible that LB is still a bit young for this. Perhaps it is a better activity for three year olds. I will definitely try this again when LB is a little older and I think I will also try and find a way to do it inside. LB is very distracted by sticks, rocks, dirt and open areas to just run. For me, the key to doing it inside will be mixing the dough while LB is asleep and then just introducing it to him as is. Letting him help pour the flour is what made it so messy in this case. As you can see in the photos he was covered in flour.

After about five minutes of playing in the dough he was off and running. Literally. Luckily, it was a nice day and we still had fun doing the usual outside stuff like.....

playing with sticks,

digging in the dirt,

running into the neighbor's yard,

dragging sticks in the dirt,

playing with outside toys,

running AND pushing,

blowing bubbles

and then dumping the bubble solution all over our shoes.

Have I mentioned that this kid loves to be outdoors? Yes, I think I have.

**Update. I wrote this post while LB was napping. After his nap we went straight outside. I had left the cloud dough bin in the garage to be cleaned at a later date. LB spotted it and asked to play with it. I brought it out and he messed around with it for about 15 minutes. So it still wasn't as long as I would like but I think it was a good sensory experience. I have to remind myself that even if something doesn't occupy his interest for a long time doesn't mean it wasn't worth our time to do. All of that to say, there is hope for cloud dough.