Happy Soda Dough

Welcome back for another month of  12 Months of Sensory Dough Recipes where several bloggers get together to share the exciting sensory dough recipes and a variety of twists and turns. It is our hope that you will have a one-stop resource for all things Sensory dough! 

This month we are featuring a huge list of soda doughs. Soda dough, in case you're wondering, is playdough made with bicarbonate of soda. We had fun playing and exploring with 'Happy Person' Soda Dough!

Bubbles turned FIVE over the weekend! I can't believe she's almost ready to start school!

To celebrate her birthday Bubbles requested a 'happy person' themed birthday party. I planned on having this activity on offer at the party but in the end it wasn't needed so Squiggles got to enjoy it whilst Bubbles was at Kinder this week. 

To invite Squiggles to play with the soda dough I set out an exploration tray with the dough, googly eyes, peppercorns, scrap pieces of leather cord, pipe cleaners and a few smiley lemons (left over from our lemon and spoon races at the party).

 Squiggles immediately set about shaping the dough into circular shapes with her hands and some circle cookie cutters. 

 She then carefully added some peppercorns and leather to make smiley faces-it was interesting to watch her do this as it took her a few tries to work out how to gently place the eyes and mouth without smooshing the dough flat. 

It was then I introduced her to the fun part! I cut the lemons in half and asked her to squeeze them over her smiles. This was another challenge for Squiggles-but one she readily accepted, working out how best to get all the juice out of the lemons and strengthening her little hand muscles in the process!

As the lemon juice fell on the soda dough, the bicarb reacted with the juice and the faces fizzed until all that remained was a yellow mess which Squiggles took great delight in mixing and turning into a 'yellow soup'-adding a few more peppercorns for decoration.

How to make your own Happy Person Soda Dough:

You will need:
500g bicarbonate of soda
Approx. 7tbs water

Yellow food dye

Method:
Begin by placing all your ingredients into a metal bowl.
Mix well until a soft mouldable dough is formed.

It's that easy!

Now for the fun part…

Would you call this recipe and activity a success or a fail? Would you try this recipe or have you tried another? We want to see! You can share pictures to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Google+. Tag your pictures with #ilovesensorydough.

Be sure to check out each blogger, as we will each provide a different take on the dough, some of us with have the BEST recipe ever, while others will show you our attempts (both failed and successful).

Rainbow Soda Dough | Lemon Lime Adventures

Ornament Soda Dough | the Pleasantest Thing

Music Inspired Spooky Soda Dough | Witty Hoots

Seasonal Soda Dough | Peakle Pie

‘Happy Person’ Soda Dough | Squiggles and Bubbles

Crayon Soda Dough | Sugar Aunts

Pumpkin Spice Soda Dough | FSPDT

Soda Dough Ghosts | Preschool Powol Packets

If you liked this activity then you may like our Fizzing Pavlova-a fun and fizzy Soda Dough creation:

 

For more activities like this check out my new book Learn with Play. It’s a collaborative work, written by myself and 93 other amazing bloggers, mothers, teachers and early childhood educators. The e-book comes with links to over 300 activities!

 

Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.  You know you're infant/child best, use your own judgement-considering your infant/child's temperament, habits, behaviour and development before you play with a new play medium.