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playdough earth model

 

Earth Day Playdough Play and Geography

Learning through play is a great way to introduce earth science concepts. Today we’re playing with homemade playdough and making a DIY model earth. We’ll count the continents, name the oceans, and talk about landmarks on each continent. If you have older kids, you can also dive into countries, the equator and how the earth turns on the daily.

Making playdough at home is a fun early learning activity that introduces math concepts and gets kids in the kitchen learning to combine ingredients in a recipe. My kids love homemade playdough more than store-bought because they love mixing the ingredients together! Keep this recipe handy, it is a goodie and super easy to make!

 

diy model earth

Supplies

  • 2 Cups Flour
  • 1 Cup Hot Water
  • 1/2 Cup Salt
  • 2 Tablespoons Cream of Tartar
  • 1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil
  • Green and Blue Food Coloring

Directions

The earth day playdough is made from two separate batches of playdough. You can either make two whole batches, one green, one blue, or you can divide the recipe in half. Below are the directions for one full batch of playdough. We opted to make two batches with ours and then add them together when we built our model.

  1. Combine the flour, salt, Cream of Tartar, vegetable oil and a few drops of green food coloring in a bowl. Slowly stir in 1 cup of hot water and continue adding water until you have the desired consistency for playdough.
  2. Shape the playdough into a ball and knead on a hard surface adding flour as necessary to any leftover sticky spots. You can also fold in more color at this time if you’d like a darker hue. My kids liked the really bright colors so we added more.

Repeat these steps for a second batch of playdough using blue food coloring.

Making a Earth Day Playdough Model

building a playdough earth

Our earth is made up of mostly water, so we started by shaping the blue playdough into a ball. Next, we flattened the green playdough and created continents. I did this activity with my kindergartener and preschooler, so our continents weren’t exactly accurate, but more importantly, they had fun!

Once we made our continents we added them to our blue ball of playdough. If you have older kids doing this project they can be more exact with the sizes and shapes of the continents. Use a pencil to mark the equator and write the names of countries and continents. You can spend time going over where things are in the world, what countries are on what continents and then even how the world turns daily. It is a great way to learn all about the earth.

finished playdough earth model

 

Earth Science Volcano Discovery Box

earth science volcano discovery box

Our Volcanoes Discovery Box contains SEVEN award-winning Creativity and STEAM Science Kits! Your pint-sized volcanologists will have a blast (literally!) with these fun learning kits including: Dig It Out Gem Mining Kit, Break Your Own Geode Kit, Volcano Splatter Art Kit, Exploding DIY Volcano, Crystal Making Kit and more! This Discovery Box celebrates thinking, questioning and original creation with fun and creative projects that will have everyone tinkering and playing long afterwards.

 

Want to learn more about Earth Day and how it came about? Head over HERE.

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