A Lovely Book & Homemade Tea Dough!
After reading Dean Robbins’ “Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass” as part of @hereweeread’s “29 Days of Black History” Reading Challenge, we decided to try out @mothercould’s awesome tea dough. It was the perfect pairing for this relaxing tea time Sensory Storytime. I can’t wait to walk you through it, so let’s get started…
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Summary of “Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass”
“Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass” by Dean Robbins and beautifully and uniquely illustrated by Sean Qualls & Selina Alko is a lovely book that gives a very cool glimpse into the friendship of Frederick Douglass & Susan B. Anthony and how they worked together to fight for the rights of African American’s & Women! It includes a brief background of both Susan and Frederick in the story, as well as a real photograph of both after the Authors Note. Very much recommended.
We are celebrating Black History Month by following along with @hereweeread ‘s brilliant “29 Days of Black History” FREE printable wonderfully designed by @whimsicaldesigns_bycj. This book is one of many that we’ll be reading this month, check out our Black History Book List here & join us!
In the story they come together sharing a cup of tea, which prompted our bookish play…
Homemade Tea Dough?
You might be wondering… “What do you do with it?” or “How is this not just going to be a sensory mess?” There are many ways to answer these two common questions…
First, the most basic answer to “What you could do with Homemade Tea Dough?” is… have Fun. Sensory play at its finest is not about “doing” something specific. It is about exploring, feeling, listening, watching, problem solving, creating, etc… This is an open-ended activity. Just as each child has their own unique personality, experience, and preference in play, the outcome of this activity is just as special.
As for the second question, Yes, this could be a messy one! But, I hear you. I’ve been asked that question many times. Therefore, a detailed answer, along with strategies for successful messy sensory play, can be found by reading, “What about the Sensory Mess?”
What We Did with Homemade Tea Dough…
We tend to keep the activities as simple as possible around here. We’re not interested in complicated or costly. We are also all about fostering independence. For this activity we boiled some water, set up the tea cups and mini cast iron tea pot I got my daughter for Christmas, and got out the raspberry tea samples we picked up along the way.
While the water boiled, my daughter measured and poured the salt, flour and oil into a glass bowl. She placed 2 teabags into our little tea pot and 2 into a smaller glass bowl. When the water was nice and boiling hot, I poured some into our teapot and a cup of it into the small bowl with the tea bags for our homemade tea dough.
The smell of raspberries was instant and the water turning deep red was too. We discarded the tea bags and I poured the cranberry colored tea into the dough mixture. What happened next stunned us…
Wait?!?… Red + White = Pastel Purple?!
My daughter and I mixed the homemade tea dough and instead of turning our predicted color pink, it turned into this gorgeous pastel purple color! I can’t tell you how many times over many years that I’ve tried making purple dough, purple pasta, purple anything sensory and the results time and time again are lackluster, super unappealing, and never purple. But today we magically made purple with raspberry tea!
After making our homemade tea dough we took a break to read “Two Friends” and sip some of the raspberry tea. Oddly enough, when we added a spot of milk the same thing happened… it turned our red tea lavender colored! :O
Nonetheless, we very much enjoyed our relaxing tea time sensory storytime and playing with our Homemade Tea Dough for quite some time afterwards. I would suggest Homemade Tea Dough if you’re looking for a relaxing & fun activity to connect with your child.
Materials We Used
- “Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass” book (from the library or you can buy one here)
- Flour
- Salt
- Oil
- Measuring cups
- Bowls
- Wooden spoon
- Water
- Raspberry tea
- Cream of tarter (optional)
- Tea cups (optional)
- Tea pot (optional)
Click HERE for Free Printable copy (Email Subscribers Only)
How to Make Homemade Tea Dough?
- Boil 1 cup of water for tea and more if you’re going to drink some tea.
- Pour 1/2 cup of salt into a large bowl.
- Pour 2 cups of flour into the large bowl.
- Whisk the salt and flour until well combined.
- Add 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil.
- Place 2 teabags in 1 cup of boiling water.
- Once the teabags have let out the desired color, throw the teabags away and pour the tea into the salt, flour & vegetable oil mixture.
- Mix thoroughly, then knead.
Click HERE for Free Printable copy (Email Subscribers Only)
Wait, There’s More…
I believe you can easily strengthen communication skills and foster independence all while playing and connecting with your child. To help you do this; I’ve created a FREE printable for each activity called, “Communicating & Connecting”.
It will give you a list of suggestions I’ve found very helpful as a Mom & as a special education teacher; to help you build lifelong skills. Please don’t feel obligated to do everything on the list (but if you do, you’re a rockstar 😉 ).
As a Thank You for subscribing; this is a special FREEBIE for our Email Subscribers Only. 🙂 Click here if you’ve already subscribed. Otherwise, Sign Up below to get the password & access to our entire FREE Printables Library today! 😉
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