Playdough is the absolutely perfect play thing for any child.
It…
- Provides hours of entertainment – that laundry’s not gonna get itself done!
- Encourages creativity – budding inventor or artist in the house?
- Promotes individual play or team cooperation with a whole group of friends.
- Is a natural stress reliever. All that squeezing and mashing can be done on the playdough instead of baby sister.
As a toy, playdough has it all!
Now you just need a tried and true perfect play-dough recipe and you can have your own little inventor creating new playdough pizza combinations in less than half an hour.
Added bonus – homemade playdough is:
- Nontoxic
- Easy to clean up
- Non-staining
The Recipe
Open the cupboard and find:
- 1 C. Flour
- 1/2 C. Salt
- 2 tsp Cream of Tartar
- 2 Tbsp Oil
- 1 C. Water
- Food Coloring
- Pot
- Wooden Spoon
The instructions are so simple!
Grab that pot and add in all the dry ingredients.
Then mix in the wet ingredients.
Stir…
stir, and stir over low heat on the oven till the playdough is the perfect kneading consistency.
And that’s it! After a few minutes to cool you can announce that the fun has arrived.
Download the recipe pdf HERE:
Extra Tips
This playdough stores great in an airtight container.
To make the playdough smell oh-so-delicious, add a packet of drink mix (like kool-aid) in with the dry ingredients. The drink mix will also color the playdough.
OR
Add drops of essential oil to the wet ingredients. Peppermint smells fabulous. WARNING: great smelling playdough encourages taste testing among smaller humans. While it won’t be tasty it won’t hurt the kiddos either!
Cookie cutters and random utensils pulled from the kitchen drawers make perfect playdough tools.
Decorate the playdough or make interesting impressions using items from around the house – shells, hard noodles, buttons, pinecones, straws, or toy animals. The kids can also make hand impressions.
Stir in some glitter while you are making the playdough for an extra fun and fancy creation experience.
Grab some playdough and spend some time playing with your children. It’s the perfect opportunity to relax and talk to your children. Sure, the laundry still won’t do itself, but the kids won’t stay little forever either.
Add in some learning fun
Encourage the littles to write their names or other words using playdough. Have them tell stories about what they are creating. While they are working on becoming literary geniuses, all that rolling playdough also increases fine motor skills.
Playdough also promotes early math and science skills when children are encouraged to create shapes, compare and contrast sizes, and explore ideas. Include the kids in making the playdough and they are working with numbers, measuring, and counting.
Just in case you’re not yet convinced that you would get the mom-of-the-year award just for making this playdough the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) says that playdough supports your child’s learning as it:
- Let’s children use their imaginations
- Strengthens the small muscles in their fingers – especially valuable for when they start to write
- Supports your child’s social skills with friends or siblings by encouraging skills such as sharing, taking turns, and enjoying being with people
- Encourages children’s language and literacy, science and math skills – all at the same time!
- GUARANTEES your child will go to the best college, get a doctorate, love you forever, and take care of you in your old age.
Ok – I made up that last one. But still – that’s a pretty impressive list!
So go ahead, whip up a batch of playdough and watch the magic happen!
