beaded play dough clouds

Our children created these awesome beaded play dough clouds from two different types of homemade dough (I was inspired by this lovely cloud from love from ginger). I had originally whipped up a batch of this cornstarch clay but when they wanted to make more and we had run out of the clay, they used our regular old classroom dough with satisfying results. We used these cookie cutters and your average pony beads. Everything was left to air-dry for a few days (a few of our fluffier clouds took a week or so).

 

The children also made a few clouds without beads. They used the tips of our paintbrushes to punch holes near the top of their clouds. Once their clouds had hardened they painted them with classroom tempera paint and added a hefty dose of glitter. We love glitter! I threaded the clouds with blue embroidery floss and then we taped them to our window frame in the classroom to enjoy.

gluten--free clay beads over at Craft Magazine

Greetings! So sorry for the pause in posting here at the 'do. School finally swallowed me up and spit me out so I am an official College Grad! Whoo-hoo! Wanna know the cool part? I specialized in play. As in children's play and why it is important. How cool is that? So now I am working on oodles and oodles of posts for you this summer but for now you can catch my gluten-free clay recipe over at Craftzine. Craft has a summer camp thing going on so keep your eye posted for more nifty projects for you and your kidlets over there as well. And for those of you moving into cooler temps, I'll make sure we don't forget you. Happy May!

**just a reminder, if you are a caregiver of a gluten-free child, please make sure the cornstarch you use is processed by a factory that is gluten free. Argo's & Kingsford's are reliable brands for this project.