Modeling and … triturating dough
Plunging your fingers into a pot of “prout paste” is loud, funny and pleasant, especially when one is passionate about the material and the “pee-poo” repertoire. Infobébé, however, prefers to talk to you about classic “crush” pastes. Guaranteed fulfillment!
Triturate, palpate, knead, crush, separate pieces of plasticine by hand : it fascinates children from the age of 2, often even before. Why ? It relaxes them enormously, it gives them new sensations and gives them the possibility of “taking power” over matter by modifying its initial shape! Incidentally, it allows the child to coordinate his sight, his hands and his mind. It also strengthens his little fingers, which will then be all the more agile in handling felt-tip pen, pen, toothbrush and fork.
Your child, a budding artist
Toddlers, children do not build anything specific with plasticine, it is the material itself that interests them. So, at 18 months, no need to organize a workshop with your child in the hope of seeing him make a Wallace or a Gromit in plasticine! NOTdo not fall into the pitfall of modeling a character or an elaborate animal in its place.. On the other hand, do not hesitate to show him that we can make holes in the dough by pushing his fingers into them, that we have the right to break the dough, to handle it as we see fit and to assemble balls by pressing them against each other to make a snowman. Later, you will offer him a cookie cutter (a glass is enough to make a circle!), And a piece of rigid cardboard to slice the dough and roughing it.
Growing up, your child will also take particular pleasure in learning to mix colors using plasticine: in a few seconds of sustained kneading, a piece of blue plasticine and another red give a material of perfectly homogeneous violet. Magical ! No more plasticine from our childhood which, once mixed, only allowed to obtain indefinable marbling and colors! For a uniform and shimmering result, be sure to choose a flexible and malleable product, the pastes being, depending on the brands, more or less miscible with each other.. If the mixture does not work because the dough, left too long in the air, has become crumbly, a tip: rehydrate drop by drop, and you will find good plasticity.