The Great Playdough Play-Off

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It is no secret that I love Pinterest.  I love having one place to put all these things I come across, cutting down on the amount of tabs I have up.  (Currently 14 tabs... aside from when I bought my computer, this may be an all-time low.

At the peak of my playdough making, I was cooking up batches for my nannybabies and all their friends weekly.  I was a machine.  But the kids got older, the weather got nicer, and I lost my paper copy of the recipe.  You can imagine my joy when a near-identical recipe floated across my Pinterest page!

Then another dough recipe popped up, with glitter!  Then another, claiming to be no-bake!  Peanut butter, oat meal, Jell-o, Kool-Aid (my stepmother used to make this one when we were little kids!) ... it seems you can make Playdough out of nearly anything in your kitchen, and it is all food-based.  (I know Play-Do is non-toxic, but it isn't food based.)

I pinned them all and forgot about most of them.  (I used the salt dough recipe to make hand print ornaments with playgroup, and it was the best salt dough I've ever worked with.  Moms had just as much fun as the kids!  I also used the cloud dough, still in our sensory bin.)

Pam, friend and amazing teacher, asked me for a favorite playdough recipe.  I gave her a link to my nanny favorite, and saw all the other ones I had "pinned", all claiming to be The Best.  Maybe my favorite dough isn't The Best.

Well, there is only one way to get to the bottom of this: Playdough Play-Off.

I'm hosting playgroup this week.  What better than a bunch of 1 & 2 year olds to test out the various doughs?  I am aware that their articulated feedback may not be fantastic, but that is not important to my study.

I've been rounding up the doughs.  Due to allergies, I won't be making peanut butter dough for this group.  I may make some for V. to try out on Saturday.

So far I've decided on these, finding them all on Pinterest using the phrase "best playdough".

Dough A, Classic Homemade Dough

Dough B, Jello Dough

Dough C, Rubbery Dough

Dough D, No-Cook Dough

Dough E, Kool-Aid Dough

Dough F, Play-Doh - the control, if I can find it cheap.  (It usually is this time of year.)

I could go on.  There are recipes that are the classic recipe with "stir-ins", such as cocoa, glitter, and spices, including pumpkin pie or chai, even coffee grounds... can you imagine?!  Even though they are food product, I think giving a bunch of 18-month-old children dough that smells like chocolate or pumpkin pie may lead to consuming larger-than-recommended amounts of dough.  (Especially if I let the coffee-scented dough loose around moms at 10am!)

With my little scientist in tow, I'm going to spend the week making doughs and giving initial observations.  Then, on Friday, the Playdough Play-off will be held!

Stay tuned!

I want playdough now!