Making Play Dough and Friendly Sabotage

The recipe I like best:

2 Cups flour

1 Cup Salt

2 Tbsp. Cream of Tartar

2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

2 Cups Water

Food coloring

Cook in electric frying pan

Making playdough with the preschool classroom is one of my favorite activities.  We often do it once a month.  It is easy to involve the students and at the end they have something fun to use in their classroom during centers.  Most often I make the color that matches the season or holiday.  This month it was "orange" like a pumpkin.  When making the playdough a secondary color I like to pretend I don't have that color food coloring.  Then we mix two primary colors to "see what happens".  

This activity is great for eliciting core language as well as language in general, but the key is friendly sabotage.  When a child comes up to the table where the pan and ingredients are waiting, I will greet them and then just stare and wait.  I'm looking for that student to use a word or sign (or more) to ask for what they need (ex. Cup, spoon, I want, flour, my turn, etc.).  Once the student has the cup/spoon and asks me to "pour" the ingredient, I do so with the bag closed or cap on so that nothing comes out.  I'm trying to elicit a request to "open".  Once we have opened the ingredient and the student then again requests that I "pour", I will ask "where" and then proceed to pretend to pour it on the floor or on their head.  I'm hoping to elicit "in", "in the cup", or "in the spoon".  My other sabotage technique is to say I forgot to bring the water and have the students try to problem solve where we can get some.  There is a sink in the classroom, and my hope is they will tell me to get it there.  This is a much needed opportunity to practice the vocabulary word of "sink" as most of my students will call it some variation of "wash hands".  Throughout the pouring of ingredients we talk about empty/full and I have the students tell me when to "stop" pouring.  I always involve the students in counting the drops of food coloring as I add them.  Word of advice, if you are mixing anything with yellow (blue/yellow, red/yellow), I recommend doubling the yellow in comparison to the other color.  For a little extra fun, sometimes I add an extract to give it a scent as well.  It is best to store the playdough, once it's cooled, in a gallon plastic bag.