Play dough recipe (no cook) Archives - Let their light shine!

Let’s make play dough at home!

Let’s make play dough at home! It’s cheap, easy and much better than shop bought. Play dough is great for children to develop their fine motor skills, lots of squishing, squeezing, rolling and pinching! It’s also good for developing language – talk about the shapes you are making, how the play dough feels, name the cutter shapes you might be using. Chat while you play.

Let’s make play dough recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups of water
2 cups of plain flour
1 cup of salt
2 tbsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp of cooking oil (NOT olive
oil or nut oil)
food colouring (optional)
Instructions:
1.Place all ingredients in a large microwaveable bowl.
2.Heat in the microwave on full power in 50-second bursts,
stirring in between, until all the ingredients are almost
combined.
3.When almost combined, reduce the heat time to 30 seconds
between stirring.
4.When combined, tip onto a floured surface and knead until
smooth (It will be hot at first, so be careful!)
5.Store in an airtight container for up to 3 months

Here’s a downloadable version of the recipe for you to print and keep and share

playdough Download

If you’ve never made play dough before here’s a few photos to show the different stages –

Just a few notes

Choose your food colouring wisely – some colours just aren’t as nice once mixed in to the dough

Add a scent if you like

Olive oil will make the dough sticky and unusable – save your money and use a cheap vegetable oil

Use cheap flour

If you prefer you can cook the dough in a large pan over a low heat, stirring all the time.

There are lots of ideas for making play dough mats on the web. Here’s a link to one site.

Autumn craft

Autumn craft and activities to enjoy! I love making seasonal wreaths. They can be taken home and used to decorate. It is good for children to see their art work displayed and treasured.

We’ve used faux leaves for this wreath that were bought. You could use cut out leaf shapes instead and add tissue paper berries. Use autumnal colours – reds, oranges and yellows, browns and add a pop of green. The wreath in the first photo is a circle of cardboard bought from Amazon. If you would rather make your own use a paper plate and cut out the centre or cut a circle from card.

Autumn wreath using faux leaves

Autumn wreath made with paper leaves — Autumn wreath using paper cut out leaf shapes and tissue paper berries

Home made playdough can be used to decorate an autumn tree.

Tree picture decorated with playdough leaves

The tree printout has been laminated – if you don’t have a laminator (and lots of us don’t) then use tacky back to cover printed or drawn tree.

The playdough is homemade and coloured with poster paint. Leaves were cut out using a cake decorating cutter. This would be a lovely activity for a small group in Sunday school or at home. If you add vanilla extract to the dough it smells amazing. If you would rather not use a cutter then just make leaf shapes by rolling the dough and shaping it with hands.

Playdough recipe – This playdough is a no cook recipe – it uses boiling water so has to be made by an adult.

1 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

1 teaspoon cream of tarter (you really do need this – don’t be tempted to leave it out and make sure it’s in date. It’ll stop the dough going slimy)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil (don’t use a nut oil in case children are allergic)

3/4 cup boiling water

Food colouring paste or ready mix water colour paint for colour

To make – add all the dry ingredients together in a mixer and then add the oil, boiling water and colouring and mix till a soft dough. You can mix by hand but it’ll take longer.

Tree free pdf to print

As well as an autumn wreath and autumn playdough trees another Autumn craft you can make extra large autumn leaves! Just cut large leaf shapes from coloured sugar paper and decorate!

let’s play with dough..

I love playdough, especially the homemade variety. It’s relatively cheap and lasts a long time and gives hours of fun and creativity.

You can make characters from Bible stories with it, add it to laminated print outs, make shapes – anything. It’s great for young children to practice their fine motor skills and exercise their hand muscles ready for writing and drawing. It’s also good for keeping children focused on a sustained activity – they often willingly concentrate on playdough for quite a while.

The above playdough is a no cook recipe – it uses boiling water so has to be made by an adult.

Recipe

1 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

1 teaspoon cream of tarter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil (don’t use a nut oil in case children are allergic)

3/4 cup boiling water

Food colouring paste or ready mix water colour paint for colour

To make add all the dry ingredients to a mixer and then add the oil, boiling water and colouring and mix till a soft dough.

I tripled this amount to make the different colours in the picture.

I added some vanilla extract but I’m not sure it’s worth it – I think you would have to add a lot to really notice a vanilla scent and that would be quite expensive.

I had a play with the dough – a simple tree laminated – here’s a free tree PDF Tree I made an autumnal tree and an apple tree.