One of my favorite indoor activities for kids and one of the best toys I know of, can’t be bought in the store. It’s something that I used every day as my children were growing up. As an elementary school teacher it was the first thing the kids saw on Monday morning. It is also one of the greatest stress relievers that I know of, both for children and their parents. Whether your looking for outdoor activities for kids, crafts for kids, or even indoor activities for toddlers. Homemade playdough is a wonderful toy for kids of all ages.

The nicest things about this playdough are; it’s edible, portable, and easy to clean up. Kids can play with it in their high chair at the kitchen table, in a restaurant, anywhere they have to sit for a few minutes.

The recipe is:

3 cups flour
3 cups of water
1 1/2 cups salt
3 tablespoons of oil
3 teaspoons of cream of tartar
Food coloring (your choice)

Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan. Stir constantly over low heat until the cake like mixture begins to solidify. Keep stirring, it will continue to solidify and eventually become shiny.
Put the mixture on the counter top, let it cool for a few minutes, and then knead it like dough. If the playdough is sticky return it to the pan and heat longer stirring constantly. (It shouldn’t stick to your fingers or the counter top.) Another thing that makes playdough one of my favorite indoor activities for kids is that as the kids get old enough, its creation is a great supervised activity for them and an introduction to the world of cooking.

I store the playdough in Ziploc bags or in resealable plastic containers. It’s great fun to make several different batches of different colors. Of course, if you mix up the different colors it all turns a lovely shade of brown. The playdough will remain good for up to six months. I think this may be one of the best toys ever created.
Enjoy!

I want to teach you how to make gravy from scratch.

Whether you are looking to learn how to make gravy for biscuits or make brown gravy from scratch to go with your favorite meat dish, This is a very easy gravy recipe!

Personally I think making gravy from scratch is a dying art. The first time I realized this I was teaching at an alternative school. I was teaching the students how to cook. They wanted fried chicken and with fried chicken I think you have to make gravy from scratch. You can buy packaged gravy like most people do. Just mix the contents with water and you have gravy. However, gravy from scratch is so much fun to do and it’s cheaper, not to mention it tastes better!

On this particular day at school after we had fried the chicken I decided to make gravy. Because I’m an educator I saw it as an opportunity for a science experiment. I told the class to gather all the ingredients and we would see if when we mixed them all together we would get gravy. One of the young men, a small-framed sophomore, went running to the refrigerator to get the milk.

Like most people I don’t care for lumps in my gravy. The trick to avoiding them is to stir in the milk slowly. So the class and I are adding the liquid and this boy says “you don’t put any potatoes in your gravy?” This is something I had never heard of. Putting potatoes in gravy sounded awfully strange. I asked him who he knew who uses potatoes in their gravy. He said to me, “My grandmother does. She cuts them up really small so they don’t look or taste like potatoes anymore. They’re squishy!” I knew then that his grandmother’s gravy must have lumps in it and that this poor young man had been told his entire life that they were potatoes. This boy was so excited to know how to make his own gravy. He exclaimed that he could have gravy everyday! He could make it to go with bacon in the morning. He could have it on his mashed potatoes at dinner. He could have gravy whenever he pleased.

It has been about fifteen years since that day in the classroom but I still have a relationship with that young man. I saw him the other day and my first question to him was “when was the last time you made gravy?” He told me that it had been just a few days prior, when he was teaching his kids how to make it.

Gravy Recipe:

Take a tablespoon of oil, either from frying something or vegetable oil.
Put it in the bottom of a frying pan and warm it up. Don’t let it get hot.
Once the oil is warm add a half cup of flour and make a paste, literally like glue.
This is when I choose to add salt and pepper. Do not let it get too hot!
From here, slowly add water or milk until the paste gets thinner and thinner and has reached the consistency you want in your gravy.

The whole process should take less than five minutes and it’s worth it. Follow these simple steps and you to can make gravy from scratch.