Anyone who comes to one of our Whoosh messy play sessions will know that I love creating many different kinds of dough. Children love handling, smelling and playing with dough… mind you, so do the adults! And… using playdough with young children offers so many benefits!
Benefits include:
- Engages children in sensory play
- Builds creativity and curiosity
- Promotes imaginative play
- Strengthens small hand muscles and fine motor control
- Supports self-regulation – dough calms and relieves feelings of stress
- Develops children’s use of language and interactions
- Plus… many more!
Creating Homemade Dough
Making playdough is cheap and easy to make and is a wonderful experience for adult and child to create together. Children will love to be involved taking it in turns to mix the ingredients with their hands and big wooden spoons, counting the cups of ingredients needed and watching the magic of transformation as the dough changes! So, when making dough with young children, I use the following child-safe recipe so that they can be involved in every step.
Child-Safe Play Dough Recipe
Often playdough recipes use boiling hot water or suggest using a microwave or stove to cook the dough as you are combining all the ingredients. However, part of the fun of creating dough is to involve your child in the whole process. Therefore, this recipe below uses only cold water, making it completely child-safe!
You will need:
- 1 cup of flour
- ¼ cup of salt
- ½ cup of cold water
- 1 tbsp of cream of tartar
- 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
- A few drops of any food colouring or extract for additional scent
Instructions
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the:
- plain flour
- salt
- cream of tartar
- and vegetable oil
Then, add some drops of food colouring/extract to one cup of cold water and pour it into the mixture. Stir the mixture really well until all the ingredients have combined.
Dust a flat worksurface/board with flour and knead the dough until it is smooth, stretchy and all of the stickiness has gone. This is the vital part of the process to ensure you get the perfect consistency!
The dough is now ready for children to squish, mould, roll punch, cut, pinch, break and flatten! Hours of fun will be had!
And remember… add cutters, rolling pins and dough extruders as well as loose part accessories to develop the play further!
Have fun creating child-safe playdough together!