Toddler Art: Play-dough and Jellyfish

We are big play-dough people around here. I always wanted my kids to play with the classy modelling beeswax you can order in the mail from those fancy, enlightened toy sellers (and which doesn't dry out), but they frankly have always liked the gaudily-colored store bought play-dough better. (And, yes, they always liked cheap crayolas better than the fancy block colors I got them, too.) We are not very attentive about the play-dough so it doesn't last very long here and we have to keep buying more. We go through a lot of it. I generally try to keep some in my purse, along with plastic dinosaurs or cars or whatnot. Today, the Lone Star Baby was using some with a little mold, a cookie cutter and, the pinnacle of excitement, a plastic knife(!). She was also using it to stick her crayons together. She had fun.

We also are big jellyfish fans around here. I cut a paper plate in half today and cut some lengths of the crepe-paper Dora streamers that we are recycling from the Lone Star Baby's birthday. The Lone Star Baby colored the paper plate and glued the streamers to the straight side...a jellyfish! She was quite pleased with herself. I have plans for even better jellyfish crafts later. I love jellyfish art. We sometimes make a temporary sort with flashlights on the wall and tell baby jellyfish stories.