Play Dough Activities

Play dough is an activity that will keep my girls occupied for long periods of time. Lately we haven't been very creative with it so I went searching for some new ideas! We recently played with some homemade play dough and discovered that it was much softer than store bought and easier to use. I found the recipe and Lucy helped me mix it up today while Julia was napping. It was easy to make other than being hard to stir at the end. I doubled the recipe and left out any coloring until it was done so I could make three different colors. Here is the recipe, along with some other fun ideas you may enjoy!

Recipe

1 cup of flour

1 cup of water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

A few drops of food coloring (or I pkg. Kool-aid mix with water for color and smell)

½ cup of salt

1 Tablespoon of cooking oil.

Combine ingredients. Heat and stir until mixture forms a soft ball. Put mixture onto wax paper until cool. Knead slightly to eliminate grainy texture. Store in tightly covered container. The recipe can be doubled.

Ideas

-stick toothpicks into a ball of dough to make a porcupine

-use toothpicks to make cages for animals

-hide a small object in a ball of play dough and let your child dig it out

-make snakes, balls, ropes, pizza, snowmen, flowers, a log cabin, or anything else you can think of

-use a rolling pin and cookie cutters (cut a wooden dowel the width of your child's hand and sand it a bit to make a perfect sized rolling pin)

-use play dough snakes to form letters

-Play dough mats: print the page and then laminate them. Simple shapes here - I chose the crown and butterfly to start with. Create jewels for the crown and spots for the butterfly!

-Brown Bear playdough mats here

-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom play mat here (use with alphabet cookie cutters or make your own letters)

-This is a great set to purchase, it comes with eyes, legs, noses, feet and more to create animals!

Do you have any other fun play dough ideas to share with us?