Here at Mrs Mactivity, we’re delighted to be a huge part of the World Nursery Rhyme Week 2018 celebrations along with event sponsor and our friends Music Bugs! In this blog post, we show you how to make some really cool playdough currant buns to help you take part in the rhyme “Five Currant Buns” – this is a really wonderful sensory activity that we know children love, and that develops language skills, fine motor skills, maths skills and more! Just to say that these buns are NOT for eating – so it might be worth reinforcing that with your children 🙂
What you need
- 300g plain flour
- 2 tablespoon cream of tartar
- 100g salt
- 1 spoonful of a spice such as cinnamon.
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (and optional glycerine for extra shine)
- 2 teabags + boiling water
- a cup of currants/raisins
- red gel food colouring (take care not to stain your hands!)
- bun cases
How to make playdough currant buns
1. Using the teabags, make one cup of tea (using two bags) and leave to stew for a few minutes.
2. Mix together the salt, flour, chosen spice, oil and cream of tartar in a bowl. Children can easily join in this part.
3. The dough should become slightly sticky. At this point remove some of the mixture to make your cherries, add in the currants to the remaining mixture and mix in.
4. Add the cups of tea (take the teabags out first!) to the mixture and thoroughly knead to ensure coverage of the mixture. Add more flour if it becomes too sticky. (we actually used brown food colouring too as our mixture didn’t go brown enough).
5. Now is the time to make your cherries! Mix a small amount of the red gel colouring to the dough you put to one side.
6. Divide your currant playdough into 5 buns in bun cases and several cherries – ensure you have enough cherries to play maths games, e.g. add 3 cherries to this bun, 1 to that bun etc.
Now it’s time to play!
How to use your currant buns
- Ask children how many cherries are on each bun as you move the cherries around.
- Ask children to put X number of cherries on each bun. Ask them to count afterwards to check what they’ve done.
- Play shops! Buy and sell buns.
- Make a cafe role play area.
- Play the song and act it out! It’s great fun to “take one away” whilst the other person is pretending not to look!
To access additional resources go to Mrs Mactivity’s World Nursery Rhyme Week Resources.
Please note that supervision will be required for activities using small parts with young children. Please do not allow children to eat the dough.
