Homemade play dough is the best! The soft, pliable texture is perfect for little hands to roll, pound, cut, press, and squeeze. This cooked dough takes minutes to prepare, and lasts for weeks when stored in an air-tight container.
Basic Play Dough Recipe:
2 cups water
1 cup salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cups flour
to add color: 1-4 teaspoons food coloring or liquid watercolor
In a large pot, begin with the water, coloring, oil, salt, and cream of tartar. Begin gently heating over medium-low to medium heat. When this mixture is warm, add the flour and mix well. Don’t worry if it is slightly lumpy. Keep stirring as the mixtures thickens into a dough. You will know it is ready when the dough is pulling away from the sides of the pot and forming a ball. Remove the warm dough from the pan, let it cool a bit, then it’s ready for playing! This is my kids’ favorite time to play with the dough — when it is still warm!
Variations: Add Kool-Aid or extracts to the dough for a yummy scent. Add glitter for sparkle, or sand, oatmeal, coffee grounds, etc. for texture.
Besides the traditional tools of rolling pins and cookie cutters, we use a variety of things around the house:
- shells and small rocks
- birthday candles
- toothpicks, straws, and popsicle sticks
- small toy cars and animals
- garlic press and potato masher
- child scissors
We also like to make two primary colors (red, yellow, or blue) and then mix them together to see what happens.
Happy playing!
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I found your post via CRAFT magazine- thanks so much for the cute idea!
This is the same recipe my mum used when I was a kid- it’s great! You can bake it (not sure how long for, but I know its hours on a low heat)to keep your creations. And more importantly, should your child try the taste test, as my sister and I did, it’s not toxic or full of weird bits, like shop bought stuff can be. As long as you’ve not added the weird bits yourself, of course…!
I am definitely putting candles out with the play dough next time. The kids always make birthday cakes. Thanks for the idea.
You could leave out the food coloring until the dough is made. Then put a few drops in the middle of a handful of dough and let the child disperse the color. They may get dye on their hands, but it’s a good experience.
you can actually make this same recipe without cooking it, just mix it in a bowl. that’s how we do it at the playgroup I attend, so the kids can help make it. we also put scents into, like once the play-doh was a light brown and they made it smell like root beer. cinnamon also works too!
i absolutely love yr dough idea.i’m a montessori teacher as well and upto now had great difficulty in getting the dough right, but thanks to u i’ve realy done it! keep up the good work.
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