Tinker Tray - Valentine Style.

I created our first tinker tray this week for one of our Valentine's activities. You don't have to buy a specific tray, for instance, I have repurposed a box that contained art materials. I have seen others who have used muffin tins to give another example of how to use items you probably already have lying around.

Our tinker tray included:

• Pipe cleaners

• Googly eyes

• Textured rolling pin

• Red and pink coconut shell rounds

• Red sequin flowers

• Red Grapat figure (from Grapat together collection)

• Pink Diferion

• Home made play dough.

I have made a lot of play dough in my time and I always come back to the same no cook recipe. It is based on the Imagination Tree's (found here) with my tweaks that I have found consistently work for me. It is pretty much the same - I only use one cup of hot water and I omit the glycerin. For no other reason that I never have it in the house and I have found the end result is good enough for me. The play dough is soft, malleable and long lasting. I keep ours in an air tight container and it easily lasts 4 or 5 months; if not longer. If it is not used for a while, it simply needs kneading again to bring it back to its previous state. Frustratingly, this batch turned out more orange than the red that I intended. I don't really know why, I used a good amount of food colouring. Perhaps gel food colouring may have better results.

The other great thing about the Imagination Tree method is that Mabel can help. (Obviously, I deal with the hot water!) As she did with today's batch. It is a great way to practice listening skills, literacy through checking the recipe. Mathematics - measuring and counting. Cause and effect, motor skill development and also I find it a fantastic bonding activity too. Additionally, it can improve engagement, because they helped create it and so they want to use and explore with their hard work.

As I mentioned above, the colour of the dough was not what I wanted. The perfectionist in me did not want to use it - however it does not matter! Mabel certainly doesn't care or share the same disappointment that it isn't the right shade of crimson. Plus, what would it have taught her if I hadn't included it? Not much, except that mistakes are not ok, and what we did was not good enough. That is not the mindset I want to instil. So, to all you other perfectionists out there I urge you to push it aside and give it a go anyway.

This tinker tray was hugely popular. We made love monsters with pipe cleaner legs, multiple eyes and bright spots. It was a great opportunity to model new vocabulary, consolidate colour recognition skills, practice counting and work those motor skills. Mabel enjoyed taking items off my love monster and adding it to her own!

After awhile, she also wanted to add other items to the table:

• Play dough cutters.

• More rolling pins.

• Lanka Kade animal figures.

I always try to encourage this as it allows Mabel to express her ideas and take the play in a different direction. Which is always a good outcome as it means we will play longer due to more engagement. This in turn means more learning will occur.

Expressing ideas is extremely important for self esteem. If we accept and encourage these ideas, our children feel heard and that their ideas are good, worthy of sharing. It also illustrates that we are open to listening.

We had a lot of fun with this activity. I wonder what you would include in you tinker tray? I also hope that if you haven't made your own play dough before you give it a go as it really is quick and easy to do.