Making play dough with your children is an activity that encourages and supports learning in math, science, sensory, social/emotional, creativity, language and vocabulary.  Let you child get their hands messy and busy making play dough.

You will need:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

2 tablespoons Cream of Tarter (found in the spice aisle)

2-3 tablespoons Vegetable oil

food colouring (I use a food grade Icing colour paste)

2 cups boiling water

***depending on the brand of flour you use, you may need a little more or less.

 

Mix the flour, salt and cream of tarter together in a large boil.

Add in the food colouring, oil and boiling water. (add 1 3/4 cups of water first, hold off the the last 1/4 cup, depending on the brand of flour you use, you may need less water or more flour depending on the texture you want for your playdough)  Here, I mixed yellow and a bit of red to make an orange (although it’s showing up yellow.

Stir all together until everything is well combined.

Start kneading the mixture into a dough.  If the dough is too wet, add some more flour.  Knead some more.  Knead until a ball forms and everything is well combined including the colour.

 

Let your child participate in making the play dough by measuring out the ingredients, stirring or whisking the dry ingredients and putting the ingredients into the bowl.  For safety, adults should pour in the boiling water and do the initial stirring of it.  

Other things to try adding to your play dough before the kneading stage, cocoa powder, Instant coffee to the boiling water for both the scent and colour, lavender buds/essential oils or glitter!  There are so many options you can experiment with.

Tools to consider: rolling pin, butter knife, scissors, garlic press or cookie cutters

Some Fun additions:  Googly eyes, buttons, rocks, animals, sticks, pipe cleaners

 

Store the play dough for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container.