Homemade Playdough

Making homemade playdough is pretty easy and uses ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen.  This recipe doesn’t require cooking which is great if you plan on making it at school. Although, you do need boiling water, but a microwave works great. 

Ingredients to make homemade playdough

2 c flour

1 c salt

2 T cream of tartar

2 T vegetable oil

Few drops of Food coloring

2 c boiling water

Mix all ingredients together.  Once cool (few minutes), knead the playdough until it is smooth.

Seal it in a bag and it will last for months.

Looking for ideas of how to use playdough?

Try these playdough activities

To start, let your children play with the dough.  Ask questions.  Encourage them to squeeze, roll, stretch and smash the play dough.  Watch them explore.  There is a good chance for some students this is their first experience with dough.

After they’ve had an opportunity to explore the playdough,

• Introduce tools such as stamps, rollers, scissors, plastic knives, popsicle sticks, or toy kitchen ware.
• Add scented oil or extract to make it a multisensory activity.
• Encourage students to try to roll the playdough into a ball or roll into coils to make a snake or the first letter of their name.
• Practice letter recognition and beginning sounds with playdough mats.

These simple hands-on activities can help preschoolers recognize uppercase and lowercase letters, the sounds each letter makes, and strengthen fine motor skills necessary for future writing.

What playdough activities do your kids like?

The playdough mats featured on this page can be found here.