Play dough is one of the best tools to work on fine motor skills with littles. The way they can manipulate the dough and imaginative play is GOLD. So, it’s always a choice in our house.
We’ve been growing our homemade playdough colors slowly as the holidays come, in order to build our rainbow stock this year. I have found that this recipe is MAGIC. I still have last year’s, that’s how good it is! Except it’s all mixed up, because… #toddlers
You really can add any tools and trinkets to play dough and kids will have blast. I just love a good theme, and it gives us a chance to talk about the objects we might not know the name of yet and dig deep into some new vocabulary (teacher here 🤩).
⭐️PLAYDOUGH RECIPE:
•2 cups flour
•4 tsp cream of tartar
•¾ C salt
•2 cups warm water
•2 tbsp oil
- Mix dry ingredients in a saucepan. Add water, oil, and food coloring (if only making one big batch).
- Continuously stir over medium heat until mixture forms a ball.
- Lay on wax paper to cool enough to knead with hands
- Knead with hands until smooth (split and add coloring now if doing multiple colors).
- Store in a plastic ziplock bag for months!
I will say though that the best way for littles to learn new ways to play and think, as well as learn rules, is for an adult to play along side with them for the first couple times introducing it. They can see how your mind is working and hands are manipulating the dough. They aren’t sure what you can do with it, nor the endless possibilities, unless they see it being modeled. In the classroom this technique is, “I do, we do, you do.” This really goes with any activity, since little minds are pretty much new at everything.
Happy playing!
Making Beautiful Messes 