Investigating playdough

As a whole class the students made playdough. I found this to be the best recipe as it did not require cooking.
Ingredients
· 2 cups plain flour
· 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
· 1/2 cup salt
· 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
· 1 and a half cups boiling water (adding it slowly until it feels just right)
· food colouring (optional)
· few drops glycerine (secret ingredient for stretch and shine!)
Method
Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl.
Slowly add boiling water into the dry ingredients.
Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky, combined dough.
Add the glycerine.
Allow it to cool down then take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously for a couple of minutes until all of the stickiness has gone. This is the most important part of the process, so keep at it until it’s the perfect consistency.
If it remains a little sticky then add a touch more flour until just right.

Before the students were given their blob of playdough, we conducted a class brainstorm about all the ways we could manipulate it. These were recorded in our Class Science Journal eg, press, pinch, squeeze, roll, flatten etc. Then the students were given time to get creative.
Once the students had completed their model they were asked to use the words on the worksheet to describe how they formed and molded the dough. This is where the worksheet comes in handy as the students had a visual copy of the words. Students who struggle with literacy and to write a full sentence were encouraged to circle the words that they used to create their model.