March 2010
A regular visitor to Little Dragons wondered why we only have only one colour of play dough for the children’s use. She was aware that we used always to have at least two colours available, maybe three. Let us just say that we have learned the hard way. Separate tubs of red, green & blue play dough soon merge into a browny-greyish mess. Yellow, red and green merge into a similar browny-greyish mess. Forget all that you have learned in the past about primary colours and how blue and yellow make green; red and blue make purple; red and white make pink – etc. There is no rhyme or reason with play dough – colour mixing makes a browny-greyish mess! I am uncertain as to whether this is just applicable to play dough due to some chemical element, or it is simply a skill only known to toddlers.
I well remember in my own infant school days the joys of modelling and moulding old- fashioned plasticine – how many of you can conjure up the odour particular to this malleable material. I was always terrified of mixing the various colours up, but then I spent most of my childhood being terrified of one thing or another. I think that what terrified me most was my sister’s black gas mask with its greenish spotted base full, I presume, of air holes. I was the proud possessor of a red Mickey Mouse gas mask with, as far as memory serves me, blue whiskers – or do I imagin
e these? I can bring up in my mind the smell of the gas mask rubber. I am beginning to think as I write that perhaps I have an over-developed sense of smell or an over-developed ability to remember smells from the past. (Now, what would a psychologist make of that?)
Perhaps it would be best to change my train of thought and return to simple happenings which occur at Little Dragons. Of course, immediately, my mind has gone absolutely blank – and that could be another story.
Val Butterworth